


They Echo, The Voices and the Songs

by Sylaise



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Different character POV, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Headcanon, I mean really slow burn, Intrigue, Politics, Slow Build, Slow Burn, The Great Game, Trespasser Spoilers, kind of, small moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:43:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 40,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylaise/pseuds/Sylaise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In that moment, in the fluttering torchlight, each of them seemed too perfect; The sharp-tongued dwarf with a heart of gold, the high-and-mighty holy warrior, the mysterious sleeping woman who would have all the answers if only she could be kept alive, and the magical healer. But Varric knew better. Like everyone, all of them had secrets.</p><p>---------</p><p>A series of shorts and character studies that roughly follows the timeline of DAI and explores the main (and a few supporting) players, including a Dalish Inquisitor with a talent for swordplay and perhaps a slight infatuation with a certain liar-liar-pants-on-fire elf. </p><p>**spoilers abound**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

He feels the screams before he hears them. Feels them rip through his flesh and muscle.

The only thing in his ears is a loud ringing. A sudden, sharp tang of rapidly heated iron and steel washes over him, powerful enough to taste. It coats his tongue as his nostrils fill with the heady, choking scent of burning flesh and bone. The force had knocked him down, the road is cold and hard under the back of his head, little stones cutting into the bare skin.

His lids open, and then snap closed again as a film of ash and smoke instantly coats his eyes. Throwing an arm over his face, he pushes himself up off the frozen ground and stands.

Something collides with his left side, then his right. Something else briefly crushes his bare foot into the frozen ground. People running every way, each chased by their own fear. The screams are no louder over the ringing in his ears but they are more numerous now. Lowering his arm, he blinks once, twice, three times, and he lets his eyes adjust to the haze. They fall on no particular thing. A city elf clutching the hand of a tiny child, as he holds a second, even smaller child against his chest. Tears are streaked through grime down all three faces. A ram, saddled with rolls of dyed wool charging through a cluster of carts that had, moments before, been a fruit stall. Bits of brightly colored skin and flesh fly in all directions, a bizarre mirroring of the carnage that was sure to be found farther up the road.

As though just noticing it was there, he looks down at the fine leather belt in his right hand. He turns and sees the leathersmith he had been ready to pay before the world had come apart. She’s laying on the ground a few steps away, the bottom half of her body crushed under the heavy, splintered oak beams of her stall.

He closes the distance between himself and the broken woman quickly, but in his movement, there is little of the panicked urgency seething through every other soul around him. Her eyes are open, the clear spring green not yet gone from them. There’s blood seeping out of her mouth in a slow stream, running through her short silver hair and pooling next to her face. Her hand is thrown over her head, as it perhaps had been on a warm afternoon many years ago, as she lay in fragrant sweetgrass staring at clouds. Her hand that then perhaps idly held a spring bloom as she lay laughing at a long-forgotten joke, now clasped a wooden hammer. She had joked with him as she used it to press the running wolf pattern into the grain of the belt he still clung to.

Somewhere in his mind, far away from present, he is certain someone, somewhere sees the deft motion with which this slight man of the People, of perhaps thirty-five summers, moves the crushing object off of her.

They would also see his hand lower to shut the once-merry eyes, long fingers brushing tears from her ruddy cheeks.

 _“Ir abelas.”_ I’m sorry.

The words are nothing. A tiny unseen knot in one of countless threads in the tapestry of chaos being woven around him.

Slowly, he turns away, his head bowed. When he’s a few steps away from her, he bends and picks up a staff, wound with leather, and crowned with a silver sunburst tied with quartz and river stones. His fist clenches around the belt he still holds, fingernails digging in and leaving four tiny marks, crescent moons over the heads of the running wolves.

Again, the thought comes as though from a different world. He wonders what that discerning pair of eyes would see if they caught on him, moving through the reeling crowd. Was there shock on his face? He thought there probably wouldn’t be. For there was no real shock in his heart. The smile they would see come over his face would not be easy to place.

He isn't certain of it himself.

Inevitability, he thinks, or maybe mocking? Mocking himself, no doubt. He feels it is the look of derision a teacher might throw at a student who had been warned and was now faced with unwelcome consequence. The smile tells a piece of the Whole wringing inside of him, gripping him until he can't breathe. The Whole of millennia’s worth of plans gone wrong, of intention being turned on its head.

He continues watching the scene weaving itself around him, becoming bloodier as he moves toward the shattered Tower. A human woman with a dwarven man slung over her shoulders, his face a mangled pulp and one of his legs gone below the knee. An elven child, no older than four, walking, searching, screaming for someone to come for him.

“Tapestry of chaos, indeed,” he says to himself.

One, he thinks, for which he has built the frame, strung the warp and threaded the needle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just started a second play through of DAI and re-read the little snippet in Solas' codex entry, about him being spotted in a village near the Conclave at the time of the explosion, and it being safe for Cassandra to presume him innocent of involvement. I was imagining him idly walking through a street market on the road to Conclave (close enough for the prologue to happen the way it does, but far enough away to create an alibi for himself because he knew what was going down) and knowing, after the explosion that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. And making a small personal connection that makes the knowledge that he caused so much havoc much more painful.
> 
> (I should add that the fic that inspired me to start sharing my own is [Apotheosis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2760119/chapters/6188690), by the immeasurably talented KeeperLavellan.


	2. Too Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric and Solas bond over being prisoners of the Inquisition.

In Thedas, the Frostback Mountains rise like a jagged spine cut through the southern half of the continent, dividing the Orlesian Empire and the Kingdom of Ferelden. Culturally, the range is a wall dividing the bedrooms of two particularly quarrelsome siblings--one side gilded and festooned with silks and lace, the other side laden with wildflowers and furnished with cedar, ash and iron. The Avvar people tell of Korth the Mountain-Father, who, fearing heartbreak and betrayal, cut out his heart and sealed it away, raising the Frostbacks above it so it could never be found. They are the door to the lyrium-rich Thaigs of Orzammar,  buried deep under the crust, where Dwarven princes reign and die. 

Varric Tethras sat on a straw mattress, in a tiny shack near the village of Haven, nestled in the northeastern part of the range. He knew these stories of the mighty peaks, and to him, there didn't seem to be a more appropriate place for the world to end.

He watched the Dalish woman thrash and claw at the air. She was shaking. He couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or whatever she was seeing behind her closed eyelids. He felt a shiver pass through his own body, as the icy wind snaked through the cracks in the tiny hovel he had been thrown into three days ago. Right after the Conclave had been blown to pieces.

He took a swig from the hipflask he carried on his belt, hoping the liquor would help burn away this particular scene from the waking nightmare he was caught in. It didn’t, of course. Lacking an alehouse table full of drunks who would believe any lie he spun into pretty words, all alcohol did was make him be more honest with himself.

He had been awake for a few minutes, jolted out of sleep by the woman’s cries. He hadn’t bothered to lay back down, since it was nearly dawn.

“Don’t you sleep?” he asked the elf who was crouched by the woman’s side.

She lay on a ramskin covering a little patch of stone floor beside the sunken hearth at one end of the tiny shack. There were no windows, and Varric knew there were at least four guards on the other side of the weather worn door. The thatched roof was like a sieve, funneling in the frozen air of the Frostbacks that the small fire did little to ward off. 

The elf was pressing two fingers into the woman's palm. That ugly green light was streaming from it again. He was murmuring something in what Varric assumed was elven, though he hadn’t ever heard it spoken so fluently.

“Seriously, how long has it been? Three days?” 

“Four,” the elf replied, the corners of the word bent with annoyance.

He resumed his litany, pressing his palms to either side of the woman’s head. She clawed at his face, lost in some terrible Fade dream. Without breaking his stream of hushed words, he caught her hands and held them to her chest until she quieted. Brow furrowed, he leaned over her to draw a small phial from his pack. He held it up, squinting at the contents in the weak light from the fire.

The sight of the elf holding the tiny bottle up in the firelight made Varric think of the Apothecary figure found in almost every Orlesian play. The one who lives in a cottage in the forest, and is paid a king’s ransom to mix a poison for a noble’s bitter second son. This man even wore a bone pendant around his neck and carried a literal bag of magic herbs and spell scrolls. Bald head, bare feet...the archetype he presented was just so perfect. Except no one was paying him anything and instead of mixing poisons, he was keeping this woman alive.

Varric watched him draw some kind of symbol on her sweaty forehead in clear oil, press his palm against it and whisper one last word. Soft, blue light radiated from the girl's head where his palm made contact with her skin. She gasped, and then stilled. The light faded slowly as the elf’s gray eyes narrowed. He held her wrist in his other hand feeling for a pulse. After a moment, he took his hands away and sat back on his heels, letting out a slow breath.

“Is she...”

“Alive? Yes.”

The elf spoke without looking up, eyes unfocused, staring into the fire.

To himself, Varric said, _“Good. She’s alive. Now what are we sending her to...an interrogation room? The business end of an executioner’s blade?”_

Out loud, he asked, “Are you...all right?”

The elf glanced at him, and paused to consider. “Four days with no sleep and little food is likely not doing me any good, Master Tethras.”

“Master Tethras,” Varric snorted.

He had not told the elf his name. The Seeker hadn’t exactly been in the mood for introductions when she brought Varric to the hovel, where the elf had already been at work with his spells and potions.

“Well then," he continued, "I can only assume my sparkling reputation precedes me.”

“Indeed. I read your Tale of the Champion," the elf replied. "Intriguing.”

“Huh. I hadn’t realized Dalish clans were interested in self-indulgent histories written by surface dwarves.”

The elf’s face broke in a strained smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I’m no Dalish.”

“Right. No marks,” Varric said, eyeing the intricate patterns etched into the olive-skinned face of the sleeping figure before him, “I just thought with your little bag of tricks, and your...general... _elf_ ishness...”

The other man let out something like a laugh. It was a derisive sound, infused with many things. Actual laughter wasn’t one of them.

“Well, you have to admit,” Varric continued, and then gave voice to his thought from a few moments earlier, “With the pack and the ointments and all the whispering in ancient tongues...” he trailed off awkwardly. "Well, Dalish or not you don't seem the...type...to frequent the booksellers hocking my wares." 

The elf’s smile warmed slightly. “Everyone likes a good story.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Varric raised the flask in salute and took another sip. He hesitated, then offered it to the elf.

The man’s eyes flicked down to the offering, then back up to Varric’s. He seemed surprised.

“I only wish it could be accompanied by a bubbling pot of stew and brought to us by dark-eyed tavern girls,” said Varric with a little shrug.

The elf’s smile finally flowed into his eyes, and he accepted the flask.

“Besides,” Varric continued, grabbing onto the lull in the tension, “It seems like you might be the only thing standing between her and some horrifying descent into madness. You need it more than I do.”

The elf turned back to where the woman still lay, now breathing deeply. Real sleep. He shook his head faintly, closing his eyes.

“I know that headshake. I’ve done that headshake,” Varric murmured softly, “You’ve done everything you can,”

“Perhaps,” the elf murmured, more to himself than to Varric.

He took another pull on the flask, and handed it back.

Varric took it and then sat looking at the figure spread out on the floor. She was no child, but she was still quite young. Her skin was the color of the rich caramels the dockside sweet-sellers sold for coppers in Lowtown, and her shoulder-length hair glistened like molasses in the firelight. He sighed. He had been down this road before. He knew what kind of monsters lurked in the shadows, waiting for this lovely young woman with the swirling pattern drawn over her high cheekbones and strong jaw. It reminded him of the trelliswork on the iron gates in Kirkwall’s Hightown, but wilder, more ancient. He wondered if the monsters had already started to close in on her.

Suddenly, a wave of despair flung itself over him with enough strength to knock the breath out of his lungs. He brought his head down and squeezed the bridge of his broad Dwarven nose between his thumbs.

“Does your head trouble you?” the elf asked, concern tinting the question.

 _In a thousand different ways,_ he thought bitterly.

The Fade bullshit, the magic no one understood. The lyrium. All of it was grinding against him, wearing him raw. He let out a laugh that was void of humor, “No. I was just trying to think of the last time I woke up to day where my only worry was coming up with dialogue that didn’t read like shit, or figuring out a worthy death for my favorite character."

He glanced up at the weather-beaten door, and the elf followed his eyes.

“Do you think they mean to kill us?”

“Who knows? The Seeker might just kill me out of sheer annoyance. You...”

“Are an apostate,” the elf finished, a wry smile playing across his lips.

_Who surrendered his staff, his books, his charms, and his freedom to help you answer the questions you couldn’t figure out how to answer. And probably saved a woman’s life along the way. Now you have him under lock and key, with guards standing ready to slit his throat._

“You bitch,” he hissed under his breath.

“My apologies. I hadn’t realized dwarves took such offense at being interrupted.”

Varric brought his head up quickly, only to find the elf’s strange gray eyes dancing in the firelight. The joke had come from so far out of nowhere that Varric couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The levity was short lived, however. The latch of the door scraped and a wide strip of whiteish-green light broke the relative darkness of the tiny shack. One of the men who had been guarding the door stepped in, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “Seeker Pentaghast wants to question the prisoner.”

“Yeah? Which one of us?”

Varric’s anger with the Seeker, always right below boiling point, was threatening to overflow. “Last I checked, no one in this hovel is exactly a _guest_ of the Inquisition.”

The guard looked down at the still-sleeping girl, and then back at Varric.“You--” he began.

“No.”

It was the elf’s voice. He had placed himself between the guard and the woman’s makeshift bed.

Varric watched the elf closely. He was shorter than the guard by several inches, but the warning in his voice seemed very real. In that moment, Varric saw something seeping through this serene healer that made him think of another taller-than-average elf he knew. He smirked at the thought of the glare this comparison with an apostate mage would have earned him from his old friend.

“I beg your pardon, _knife-ear,_ ” the guard spat, his hard accent and honest belief that the slur would cut down any elf who dared look him in the eye, spoke of a low-tier city noble, a second or third son. Probably lacking a few inches below the belt.

Varric fought down what would have been a magnificently ill-timed chuckle. In that moment, regardless of how well and truly fucked they would be if they had to fight their way out, unarmed against a pack of meat-headed guards, Varric felt lighter than he had in days. Not only had the despair not taken away his lasting propensity for cock humor, talking his way out of a fight with this idiot was a task he could get his mind around. “Unless the Seeker wants one of her men to be seen hauling an unconscious young woman out of here in chains, I suggest you wait until she wakes up," he said, rising and moving to stand next to elf, facing the guard.

The big man ignored Varric and tried to push past them.

Hot, crackling violet light began to shine from the elf’s hands, and the guard stopped in his tracks. The elf hadn’t moved an eyelash and the tiny bolts of lightning had gone no further than his fingertips, but whatever Varric had seen in him a moment ago, the guard had caught onto it as well.

“No.” the elf repeated.

“I’d reconsider your present course.”

The source of this new voice was blocked from Varric’s view by the guard, but he knew the sound of it all too well. “Seeker,” he boomed in a mock-jovial tone, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The tall, hard-faced warrior stepped around the guard. She didn’t reply, but kept her eyes steady, focused on the elf-mage, whose fingers still sparked and sputtered with magic. They stared at each other, distrust radiating from both of them in waves large enough to almost be visible. Her hand moved to the head of the axe she carried at her belt.

“You’ve given me little reason to doubt you so far. Please don’t change that now,” she murmured, her voice even, but rock-solid in its meaning:  _one more move, and I will destroy you_. 

The elf remained in place for another few seconds before relaxing his shoulders and letting the light dissipate from his hands. He seemed to have decided on something. He was still looking carefully into the Seeker’s eyes, as if still expecting her to start swinging, but his voice was calm when he spoke. “She isn’t ready, Seeker. I’m uncertain of what might happen if I wake her.”

His sense of duty to a person he’d never even spoken to was surprising to Varric. Unsettling, even. _Maybe he is just a good citizen helping out because it was the right thing to do,_ he thought.

In his tale-spinner’s mind, Varric thought this story smelled a little bit too important to have _that_ guy be one of the principle players-- _that_ guy, who was good for the sake of good and usually suicide by pen and inkwell. No. Varric was sure there was something more going on with this elf. It was just too perfect.

The elf knelt back down beside the Dalish woman and placed his hand against her forehead, and then brought it down to cup her cheek, as though checking for a fever. Varric saw the man brush a sweaty lock of dark hair from her forehead with a finger. A fleeting, unnecessary gesture that lay in sharp contrast to the methodic certainty with which he had been tending her previously.

Varric suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. Who was he, a dwarf who lied for a living, to judge this man who had maintained a four-day-vigil over this woman, not sleeping and not eating, while the people to whom he had offered his help held swords to his back?

“Give me until tonight, Seeker” the elf was saying. There was no pleading. It was barely even a request.

The tall warrior looked from the elf’s face down to the woman and then back again. After a moment, she nodded slowly.

Then she faced Varric. “I need your help.”

Help. _Help_ , she says. A positive monsoon of venom formed just behind his lips.

She seemed to sense this, and continued before he could release any of it. “More demons are pouring out of the Breach. We need every weapon we can summon.”

The thin membrane holding the venom back started to give way, but as it did, he glanced down at the elf, now back to tending the woman. He was so focused, so intent on giving this nameless person life. It humbled Varric in a way he'd not felt since...well, it had been a long time. He really could be a blighted ass sometimes. So caught up in trying to bend living flesh into stony, perfect literary irony.

Varric realized then that the reasons this man had for doing what he was doing didn’t much matter to him. In that moment, in the fluttery torchlight, they all seemed too perfect; the sharp-tongued dwarf with a heart of gold, the high-and-mighty holy warrior, the mysterious sleeping woman who would have all the answers if only she could be kept alive, and the magical healer. But Varric knew better. Like everyone, all of them had secrets, but only one among them was trying to save someone's life.

Varric sighed. “You don’t want me backing anyone with a sword,” he said, striding past the Seeker.

When he reached the door he turned. “Either you give my girl back to me or conjure up some Dwarven master craftsmen to make me a new one."

The Seeker glared at him, but then motioned behind her. Another guard hefted a crate through the door and slammed it down on the stone at Varric’s feet.

 _Don’t worry, sweetheart. No one’s replacing you_.

He opened the top, and lifted out the only possession for which he would have thrown himself off a watchtower before seeing destroyed. His hands slid over the wood. It was polished perfectly, not with lacquer, but the passing of years and the contours of his fingers. The silver detailing, icy cold from the mountain air warmed to his touch, and the steel trigger seemed to leap up when his forefinger curled around it.

“When you’re quite through,” said the Seeker, with the air of a disapproving chaperone.

“Give me a minute. It’s been--shit. How long?”

The Seeker didn’t answer, but he thought he might have detected a note of sadness on her usually hard face. Before he could study it further, she had brushed past him and out into the cold.

Varric turned back to the elf. They were alone in the shack again, accompanied only by the Dalish woman’s breathing. “Before I go trotting off to my very probable and very gruesome death, can I get your name?"

"Why?" the elf asked, the half-smile curling his lip again.

"If I survive, I want to be able to call you more than “the elf” when I write the book.”

The other man hesitated and seemed again to be making some final decision before speaking.

“Solas.” 

“Solas,” Varric said, clapping a hand on the kneeling man’s shoulder.“If I see you again, I’ll come up with some annoyingly charming nickname for you. And maybe buy you a real drink.” 

Now with both corners of his mouth quirked up, Solas replied “I’m not sure I’m looking forward to it or dreading it.”

The two looked at each other then, and Varric felt the colossal weight of the whole thing pressing down on them, and this Dalish stranger, who had no idea what might be crashing down or building up around her. Would she be a small piece of glass in this twisted rose window? Or the lead came that held each piece of glass in place? 

“Let her sleep for another day,” Varric murmered quietly. 

Solas held his eyes for a second longer, nodding faintly, before returning to his work. 

Varric turned and stepped out into the cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Varric and Solas have a really interesting relationship, both as characters and as literary devices. Both of them are 'big picture' guys, but for obviously different reasons. Varric, ever the storyteller, is constantly weaving tales and finding things in people that make them unforgettable in print, while still seeing those people around him as part of larger narrative. Solas is literally the thing that those legends Varric loves are made of, who sees everything through a larger lens because, well...he's super old. They would be like oil and water in a lot of ways, but super tuned into each other in others. Each kind of seeing through the other's masks, but not knowing what to make of the things they found. 
> 
> <3


	3. Vir Assan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassandra and Leliana question the Dalish woman who fell out the breach. She's not overly thrilled to be there.

As her hands struggled against the impossibly heavy iron bind, Marana, daughter of the Dalish scholar Sherel and huntress of Clan Lavellan, clawed through her memories to remember the last time she had felt so cornered.

When her brothers had backed her up against the side of a stone ruin, she suspected, brandishing their stick swords at her as they cackled and jeered. Playing the evil shemlen bandits or fearsome Qunari swordsmen to her brave warrior.

Yes. The absolute and delicious fear of childhood fancy, so ignorant of its true suffocating power.

Though she was no child, she clung to the tiny thread of hope that escape was possible. That someone would come to save her. That she would be able to charm or bully her way out of whatever was happening.

 _Fool,_ she chided herself.

She tried to remember the last time she had held her sword. This morning, to sharpen it. The irony would have made her laugh if she hadn’t been shackled and surrounded by giants.

The sheath was no longer belted at her waist and nowhere to be found inside the reach of the torchlight that spread across the damp stone floor.

_What were you planning to do, da’len, little foolish child, hack your way through four armored shemlen guards?_

She looked up at them standing at the wooden doors. One was a young woman, impassive, solid as a bronto. The other three were men, who looked at her with expressions she couldn’t read. Pity? Fear? She thought she saw a little of both.

Suddenly, white-hot pain seared through her right hand, and a sickly green light streamed from her palm and mixed with the warm torch fire, throwing dueling shadow patterns over the contours of the stone walls and floor. The hand jerked up as a reflex, like she had nicked it with a cleaning knife or pricked it with a needle.

Or it would have, had the bind around her hands not been so heavy.

The dirty iron cut into her wrists with the movement, and panic washed over her again, as it always had when any part of her body was unable to move freely. The windowless building was doing nothing to help, either.

The dread loomed. The dread that had overtaken her often as a child when the horseplay that came with having brothers was taken too far. Many a nose had been bloodied by her fists when she had been held down in the snow and tried to free herself, and a game that had started with all players laughing quickly turned to tears and fretful apologies. And eventual teasing.

It was biological, she knew. A part of her that had always been. Her father called it her Deep Fear.

She bit it back.  _There’s a real reason for dread here, da’len._

Her eyes moved to the woman circling her. Her experience with humans wasn’t plentiful, but rarely had she seen a woman--or man--wield so much power. She towered over Marana where she knelt, broad shoulders made even broader by pauldrons that gleamed in the dual light of the torches and the thing on her hand. Her face was hard, eyes full of something Marana couldn’t read. She continued to pace, lips pursed and arms folded. She seemed to be choosing words she was going to hurl like knives.

She stopped suddenly and lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of Marana’s tunic, bending low so their faces where level. “Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now. The Conclave was destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you. ”

Marana stared at her, unable to give an answer. She hadn’t been able to read the expression on this fearsome woman’s face, but there was cold rage in her voice. Marana managed to scrape together a glare on her face, and she hoped it masked the panic still simmering below the surface. Whatever had happened, whatever her part in it, she was certainly not guilty of anything that deserved execution.

Was she?

She felt again as though she were clawing through her mind, searching for the memories of before she had been jolted awake, flat on her back with hands bound in iron. She had been sitting in the Conclave, perched high on a stone buttress, straining to hear the words of the speakers in the crowd below. This she remembered distinctly, as it had been such a painful ordeal getting up to such a height without drawing notice from the elven servants laying the room for the meeting, and without killing herself. She remembered cursing profusely, thinking that Rel, her youngest brother was the agile one. He scampered through trees like he’d been born to them. Why hadn't the keeper sent _him_ _?_

The woman was speaking to her again, jerking her away from her thoughts of her brothers, and warm afternoons spent in sun-sprinkled trees. “Explain this.”

She had lifted Marana’s iron bind as effortlessly as she might have lifted a piece of firewood. She grasped the hand with the gash of light, the cold rage in her voice heating rapidly to a boil.

“I...” Marana began the sentence without knowing how she might finish it.

The pain saved her the trouble. She knew her hand must be broken, shattered with the heat of the green light surging out of the bloodless gash. She hear herself cry out loudly, and her mind splintered.

She was in a nightmare. A crushing darkness, illuminated only by the same sickly green light. She looked out over the landscape and saw only cracked earth broken broken by colossal rock formations what seemed to be dripping.

Dripping with...what...water? No. It was moving far too slowly down the rough surface to be water.

She reached down, her hands unbound, to touch the odd surface. It was clammy and cold to her touch, but when she pulled her fingers back, they were clean. She touched it again, scratched it with her fingernails, determined to pull something up that would ground her, mark her with something real. Then she was aware of the hairs on the back of her neck rising. She shivered, as she always did when something had crept close to her in the forest. Usually, it was one of her brothers waiting to jump out from behind a tree and frighten her. Perhaps a halla, ready for her hunter’s arrow to pierce its flesh, its hide destined to be a new bedroll for her mother, and weeks’ worth of hot stew.

But this was the nightmare. The awful scuttling sound washing over her as she began to run. She didn’t need to look back--whatever was bringing that sound into the world, this strange gleaming, misty world, was something she didn’t feel she needed to see. The mountainside she was running up was growing steeper with each step, as though it were bending itself, shaping into an impossibly steep summit. The top was where she needed to go, she was sure of it. It was the only place showing anything other than that endless, hopeless emerald light. The scuttling was louder now, and in that moment, she wished she had been wearing something, anything other than the thin-soled hunter boots that hugged her feet.

Lyra, their Clan Lavellan's best craftswoman, had designed them especially for hunters. They were meant to allow one to feel the ground for the footfalls of prey in the woods, giving the hunter an advantage. Here in this place, it only made it so she could feel the steady, rattling movements that much clearer. She had no sword, no bow, not even a dagger to use against the thing--now, she thought, many things--following her.

All of her focus was placed on the light straight ahead of her. She reached out toward it, hoping to reach a bit of its warmth with her fingertips, but there was only the same heavy, wet damp. She was drawing closer to it. She could see a form within it now. A human form. Sweet Mythal, was that...?

Another wrench to the front of her clothing brought her back to the present.

“What is it?” the woman hissed, a finger length away from Marana’s face, “Tell me.” 

I...can’t,” Marana stammered, her voice sounding much more feeble than she would have liked.

“You...what do you mean you _can’t._ ” She heard the mocking in the woman’s voice on the last syllable, and for some reason, it brought her back to herself.

“I...don't know what it is. Or how it got there. And you...” a thousand angry words formed just behind her lips, but the woman interrupted.

"You're lying” she growled, and lunged at her again. 

“Enough, Cassandra.”

A second woman appeared from the shadows, hooded, her eyes shining like onyx in the strange light. “Don’t you think we might need her?”

"Gods, all those people...” she muttered to herself. There had been hundreds. 

This woman was smaller, her voice quieter. “Do you remember what happened? How it began?” she asked, and her tone seemed to belong to an older sister, trying to come to the bottom of a troublesome disagreement over who had got to the spot closest to the fire first.

 “I told you,” Marana said in a voice she hoped shook less than the one she had used before, “I’ve no idea what this thing is, or how it got there.”

She hesitated, looking up at the two women. Would they believe her? Would they simply kill her if they thought she was lying?

“I do remember running. It was a dark, and things were chasing me, and I was running toward this light...I think I saw a woman.”

It sounded like the kind of story she would have told if she had been being scolded for spending the afternoon running after halla through the field rather than splitting kindling, as she ought to have been. When all else fails, tell them something was chasing you.

“A woman?” the smaller woman asked, looking genuinely surprised.

Marana nodded. The two women stepped away, speaking quietly to one another. She heard the armored woman, Cassandra, say something about a camp. The hooded women slipped away through the door, steps nearly silent.

Cassandra looked down at Marana, anger still written across her face at every juncture. She held out her hand toward one of the guards, who paused, and then threw her a set of keys on a ring. She caught them deftly, and bent to unlock the binds around Marana’s wrists. The second she could move her arms freely, Marana brought her glowing hand up to the side of her face. If felt hot, like something heavy had been dropped on it. It stung, burned, and ached all at once, though if she had to describe the feeling to a healer, she didn't think she would have been able to. 

She flexed her wrists, but just as quickly as the lightness of freedom began to settle over her, Cassandra reached forward again, this time tying her hands with a length of rope. She struggled against them, anger and frustration pouring out of her mouth in a hiss. She caught the woman’s wrist in her unmarked hand, and dug her fingers in. “Let me go.”

She had intended the words as a threat, but for all the ferocity in them, there may as well have been a warbling “please” at the end.

Cassandra’s eyes moved up to hers, and a bit of the rage seemed to have ebbed. Now, to Marana, she just looked tired, worn down, older than she probably was. She was certain this fierce woman had heard the pleading in her voice, and she deftly twisted her wrist out of Marana’s awkward grip. She stepped back, an unreadable expression on her face, before turning to walk out the door.

Marana eyed the guards. Now that there was only rope holding her hands together, she wondered if she could be fast enough to get a hold of one of their swords.

“Come. You need to see something.” Cassandra was standing and waiting for her, one hand on the door. Marana hesitated only a second longer before following her out.

Her eyes slammed shut against the sunlight.

No. Not sunlight. She blinked, and looked up at the sky.

It wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen. It was a storm turned inside out, swirling and oozing out of a massive break in the clouds, which were poisoned for leagues around by the same green light that shone from her hand.

“We call it the Breach,” said Cassandra, “A massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

Marana’s mind reeled. What kind of explosive could rip open a hole in the sky? Many holes, if Cassandra was telling the truth. And how had she, an elf hunter with no magic, caught in the dead center, survived? Panic ripped through her again. Had she been possessed? Had she been used to carry out a mass murder at the whim of some demon? She resumed clawing through her memory, grasping for something, anything that would help her remember. But there was nothing. She had been in the Conclave, and then she had been laying on the stone floor of a small cottage, wrapped in a skin by a small fire. Vaguely, she remembered a man kneeling over her, whispering. She remembered cool hands on her fevered face, and long fingers holding her hands to her chest. He hadn’t been there when the guards had come for her, so he must have been a part of some delirium.

“What kind of explosion can do that?” Marana asked, cursing herself for the quaver she heard in her voice. She sounded like a frightened child.

Cassandra paused before replying.“This one did, and unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.”

Marana looked at her. Who was this woman? Who did she think Marana was?

_I hope you have some idea of how to accomplish this, because I certainly don’t._

She started to say this out loud, but at that moment a deafening crack sounded from the Breach. The ripple of pain that coursed through her hand continued up her arm this time, attacking her shoulder with sharp fangs of green light. It brought her to her knees, her eyes watering. She struggled against the ropes. Cursing. The Deep Fear was licking at her again, and forced herself to brush it away.

Cassandra knelt before Marana, searching for her eyes. “Each time the breach expands, your mark spreads, and it is killing you. It...may also be the key to stopping this. But there isn’t much time.”

“Do I have a choice?” Marana said, glaring up at Cassandra.

The warrior didn’t answer, but took a hold of Marana’s arm and brought her to her feet. She led her past disheveled lines of armored men and women. Some wore the same guard uniforms as the ones who had brought her to her prison, iron or steel with mail shirts. Others wore hoods and leathers. Each of them stared at her as Cassandra led her through them, their eyes hard, merciless.

As they strode further from the prison, the people staring at her began to show more variety. Young men, too young to be soldiers, and older women, wearing the bloodied aprons and leather satchels that marked them as healers gathered outside tents and around fires, each pausing from his or her work to watch the two women pass.

“Murderer,” a man holding a parchment roll and a quill pen hissed.

The woman next to him called out something that Marana couldn’t hear, for it was drowned out by more shouting, pelting her with words. _M_ _urderer, savage, knife-ear._ They were calling for her head.

Her cheeks burned. The fear that had been threatening to claim her since she had awoken had been chased away by a swift anger. Who where these people, these _shemlen_ to call her a murderer? She couldn’t remember a single event that had brought her to this place. She had been unconscious while they had tried and convicted her, if not by their laws, in their hearts.

Amongst the crowd of onlookers, she could pick out a few Andrastian clerics by their red, gold and white robes. She had seen them many times on the roads, spreading their Chant of Light to the Dalish. She thought of her father then. A man of learning, he always stopped to talk to them, wanting to learn their stories, and share those of their people. He was fond of drawing parallels between Andraste and Mythal, fascinated by the stories of their Maker. He even read many of their stories to his children under the stars, the same place he told them of Andruril, Sylaise and Ghilan'nain. To him all of them _were_ only stories.

The thought of her father angered her even more. He had asked all of his children to be accepting, to listen to the clerics. He’d asked them how there could ever be peace if people didn’t listen to one another?

_And what of your Maker now, shemlen, What of your beloved Andraste? “Blessed be the peacekeepers, the champions of the just...” Fen’harel take you and your children if this your idea of justice. You call me a savage...when you are the ones who..._

Marana longed to spew these words at clerics who shouted at her, but as it so often did when her thoughts were at the peak of their vitriol, her father’s voice, deep and gentle, interrupted her seething... _You need to show them, da’len. Show them, don’t shout it at them._

She was not child who could be bent to their whim by threats and angry words, scared into confessing to something she had no memory of. But she was not a savage, bloodthirsty and vengeful enough to wish the Dread Wolf upon their children. She would show them _vir assan._ _  
_

She raised her chin, and kept her eyes straight ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This obviously follows the opening pretty closely, but I wanted to dig a bit into her origin. Marana's family has shaped her into the kind of person who can be the Inquisitor...and her pride does come from her sense of being Dalish, but almost equally from her family and the people she loves. 
> 
> vir assan - the way of the arrow ("fly straight and do not waver")  
> da'len - little child
> 
> *many thanks to katiebour for the Elven translations.  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/359253/chapters/582281
> 
> <3


	4. Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since Cassandra has been taking kind of a beating in the last two chapters...
> 
> A bit of Solas, a bit of Cullen and everyone's favorite Grand Chancellor.

_My Creator, judge me whole: Find me well within Your grace, touch me with fire that I be cleansed, tell me I have sung to your approval._

Cassandra spoke these words to no one in particular. 

They came as muscle-memory to her tongue, the meter of the verse falling into place with no effort. As her quiet murmur filtered through the silence in the firelit room, she expected heads to turn in her direction. When they didn’t, she was grateful.

She wondered how many other prayers were being spoken at that very moment, in this room, in this village and in this world.

She closed her eyes and rested the back of her head on the wall she was sitting against. She knew what she had seen. She had been there the whole time, hadn’t she? Vaguely, she wondered if she had dreamt the whole thing. The Dalish woman’s glare in the prison cell, piercing her like a nettle; only a small sting with the first contact, but swollen, lingering agony for days after. The shouts of the townspeople, calling this woman a savage as she, Cassandra Pentaghast, the Right Hand of the Divine, paraded her through them like a convicted murderer. The hum of the sword the same woman had taken up to protect her from a demon. 

The vision of Divine Justinia, calling out for help.

She picked up her head and looked across the room at the Dalish woman, who was, once again, lying asleep and beneath the ministrations of the Elven mage. 

She was certain she had never seen anyone fight like this woman. Marana, she had told them her name was. The sword she had drawn from the hand of the fallen soldier was at least half her height--and probably half her weight--but there had been no falter in her stance. Her steps were light and she seemed to slip around the giant claws of the demons like wind, but her blows fell hard and true wherever she chose to land them.

When Cassandra had been certain the hilt of the Pride Demon’s lash would break her shield arm and the rest of her lean body under its weight, she had thrown it off, her eyes alight with a fire Cassandra had only seen in the tiniest handful of fighters.

And not two days ago, Cassandra had been ready to execute her and this odd mage who had saved her.

“Are you doubting your decision, Seeker?”

The words cut through the silence. Unlike the whisper of her spoken prayer, his voice had purpose. The heads of the others swiveled around to look at him, then at her, interrupted from their respective reveries.

“What decision is that?”

“To not kill me. Or the girl.”

He hadn’t looked up from the book he held open, balanced on one thigh as he sat on the edge of Marana’s bed, but Cassandra was certain he was taking in every shift in her posture, every furrow of her brow.

“I...” she faltered.

His blunt words had brought the prickle of shame she had felt to a full, stinging burn. “I wonder what you would have done in a similar circumstance.”

She gritted her teeth at sound of her own words, hating how defensive, how childish they were. Wishing, as she did so often, that she could snatch them back and rearrange them into something...what...kinder? More like the apology she knew he deserved from her?

“The next time a human comes to me, an elven apostate with no _vallaslin_ and no noble employer, and offers their help, I’ll make an effort to find you and formulate an answer,” he said, eyes still on his book.

There was a snort of laughter from the corner of the room, opposite the bed.

She turned to glare at the smug dwarf, who was sitting on the floor and sanding pen nibs on a small whetstone. He glanced up at her and shrugged. “What? You dove right into that.”

She sighed, shaking her head. Of course he was right. They both were. She needed little reminding of how many mistakes had been made. Ironing out the events of recent days, months, even, she knew that she didn’t come off much better than the Seekers to whom she had denounced her allegiance in the first place.

“In answer to your original question, Solas...” she began, and trailed off.

He glanced up at her then, his gray eyes searching. There was less anger in them than she had expected to see.

“I doubt many things,” she continued, slowly, choosing her words carefully, “But she saved us. If that...vision...was true, she tried to save the Divine. And it’s because of you she’s alive.”

He continued to study her, and she felt herself shifting under his gaze. It was disconcerting how intent he could be.

“You doubt your Maker’s approval then?” he asked finally, closing the book he had been holding and rising to his feet.

“ _Your_ Maker?”

She was deflecting again and she knew it, though she had been wondering if he was a believer in the Dalish gods or if he was an Andrastian convert, like many city elves. He checked the sleeping woman’s pulse one last time before striding toward the door. “Did you think I was Andrastian?” he asked, a faint smile on his lips.

“I...wouldn’t have presumed,” she replied, also standing.

He opened the door, and held it open for her, the invitation to walk with him clear.

“You worship the Dalish gods?”

His smile broadened. “After a fashion,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have pried,” Cassandra said as she passed through the threshold of the house.

More people had gathered in the hour or so since she had last been outside. Waiting. She glanced sideways at Solas, who surveyed the crowd with a wary eye, but said nothing. She wondered if he saw the cautious admiration in the looks of the townspeople, or if he cared. Was this something you pointed out to a man you had threatened with execution not two days ago? She thought it probably wasn’t.

They continued to walk in silence, the people moving to let them pass, some nodding, but always returning to their faithful vigil, bodies angled toward the house. They were nearly silent, and when they spoke, they spoke in whispers. She wondered then what it was going to be like for Marana when she woke up. To be the object of such ridicule and have the citizens of an entire town calling for your execution one day, and then surround you, kneeling in revered silence...well...she wasn’t sure how anyone could really react to that.

It was about an hour past dawn, and despite the wind rolling in from the North across the frozen lake, and the awkwardness she felt in Solas’ company, Cassandra relished the warmth of the sun on her face. There had been so much darkness, so much loss, that it was a good thing to know that something as simple as sun warming skin could still bring her spirits a notch higher.

“So, do you doubt your Maker’s approval?” Solas asked again as though there hadn’t ever been a break in their conversation.

Cassandra resisted the deflection this time. She had spoken the Transfigurations verse aloud to begin with. Its meaning wasn’t especially subtle. “Everyone doubts the Maker’s approval,” she said with a small smile, “it’s the basis for our entire religion. But if you are asking whether or not I think allowing you and the girl to live was the right thing according to my own faith, then yes. I do.”

She turned to him then, uncertain of how to proceed. They were standing by the giant wooden doors that lead to the empty stables and smith’s forge. He was still studying her, but she didn’t shift this time, and her eyes didn’t move from his.

“The verse you spoke in the house,” he said, gesturing backward with a hand, “You were asking if you had sung to his approval. Approval for what?”

“For...starting us on this path to begin with. For believing that she was...sent.”

“Asking for confirmation?”

“Perhaps.”

“Did you receive any?”

Cassandra paused at this. By his tone, they might have been having this discussion in a purely academic sense, but she was certain this was another trap.

“If you are looking for an apology, Solas...you have it. I was wrong to doubt you as I did.”

He smiled again, and there was, she thought, a hint of bitterness in the expression. He turned, his hands behind his back, and began pacing. “And if she isn’t chosen?” he asked, his back to her, “if she was merely a coincidence...what will you do with her? Will you cast her out when she ceases to be useful?”

The accusation in his voice was faint, but definitely present. It took her a moment to understand his full meaning. “Because she’s an elf?” she asked, and she heard the tinge of defensiveness creeping back into her voice.

Solas turned and set his stance in response, arms crossed, as if daring her to deny it.

In truth, she was appalled at the idea that anyone would think she might turn someone away because of their faith or their race, but she knew what she must look like to Solas, and Varric. What they all must look like--herself, Cullen, Leliana, Josephine. Besides, she knew what he was really asking. Now that he had saved the girl and discovered a way to close the rifts, would they be casting _him_ out, or imprisoning _him_ as an apostate. She had overheard Marana herself ask him that very question in the mountains two days ago. “What will you do when this is all over?” she had asked. 

“One hopes that those in power will remember who helped. And who did not.”

She sighed, and looked at him, more closely this time. Though he was of lean eleven build, he was taller than most elves she had met, and broader. He was shorter than she was, but only just. The faint lines around his eyes put him at a few years older than she, though the rosy pallor of his skin made him seem younger. His eyes were discerning, but revealed little. She found it difficult to imagine this man in a cell, or on trial for his life, and she wondered if the circumstances were different, would he even let it get that far. There was no ignoring the power she had glimpsed in him in the last few days. Fighting demons, it was strange, fluid, with a kind of beauty and precision she hadn’t seen from many mages. Directed at her and her soldiers, as it nearly had been in the shack, it was unsettling. Frightening, even.

Then she thought of Chancellor Roderick, and his readiness to send Marana off to Val Royeaux for trial and execution, even as he watched her cut down wave after wave of demons pouring over walls. Even two days after the fact, the memory of him calling her ‘elf’ and the absolute, pedantic certainty with which he proclaimed her guilt, made her dig her fingernails into her palms. She might be a lot of things, but she was nothing like Roderick. She refused to be.

Realizing she had been silent for nearly a minute, she sighed, and looked down. “I have no idea what the Chantry will do with the Divine dead,” she said quietly, her voice cracking on the last syllable, “But I’ve seen you--both of you--do more to help than...well...I, at least, will not forget. I can’t promise more.”

Solas nodded slowly, and resumed pacing. “You are not what I expected either, Seeker. It was wrong of me to assume...” He seemed to be having trouble finding the words.

“I suppose we can agree on one thing,” she said, “Neither of us is good at admitting when we are in the wrong.”

He laughed softly, and it broke a tiny ray through the cloud of tension that had settled over them the moment they had laid eyes on one another.

“Do you think she will be all right?” Cassandra asked, after letting the moment of levity steep through her black mood.

“Yes,” Solas answered, briskly returning to business.

He turned back toward her, and motioned for her to continue walking with him. “I’m surprised that one with no magic could wield such a great deal of power, and I’m still uncertain of the exact nature of the mark,” he paused, his blue-grey irises focused on a point far away. “But I think at the moment it is mostly simple exhaustion that keeps her in such a deep sleep.”

Cassandra nodded slowly, and then turned quickly to him. They had almost reached the steps of the Chantry, and it occurred to her that he probably hadn’t slept in days. Four days of tending the girl after the explosion, and two more since she had stopped the Breach’s expansion. “Solas, you should rest. Have Varric look in on her and let me know when she is awake.”

He smiled, and it was a more thorough thing this time. He looked ten years younger. “I’m certain I will return and find him fast asleep on his pen nibs.”

Cassandra smiled at this too, knowing it was probably true. “I’ll send someone so you can both rest.”

“Thank you, Seeker. Cassandra.”

“There’s an empty house near the Chantry.”

He glanced up at her, nodded once and turned to go, but before he had taken three steps, the huge oak doors of the Chantry whipped open, and Commander Cullen strode out, coat billowing behind him, Chancellor Roderick on his heels.

Cullen looked relieved to see Cassandra, but she let out a huff of irritation. Now that he had seen her, he would deflect whatever pompous sermon the Chancellor was spouting onto her.

“Go,” she said to Solas, “You’d do better to avoid this.”

“Agreed,” he said as he strode briskly away back to the house where Marana and probably Varric slept.

“You, there!” the chancellor called out, beginning to veer to intercept the mage, but Cassandra stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

“Stop him! He needs to surrender his staff at once, now that the prisoner is stable.”

She crossed her arms and glanced at Cullen, who shrugged, grimacing behind Roderick’s back. She made sure the crunching of bare feet on frosty ground had faded completely before she spoke. She doubted Solas would have let himself be baited by Roderick’s hand-wringing, but after nearly six days of not sleeping, she didn’t want to test him.

“Solas has earned a few hours of sleep” she said.

“I think he can manage without his staff.”

“I will not chase him down and demand he surrender his possessions after he has been awake, tending the girl for days, Chancellor.” Her voice was level, but she figured her calm was good for perhaps one more exchange with this sycophant before she started swinging.

Cullen must have sensed this, because he spoke up, “We could all do with a bit of rest, Chancellor. It’s been a long--”

“You are both under the orders of the Chantry, _Commander_.”

The last word he spoke with tone of false deference, and it seemed to touch a nerve, for Cullen’s usually calm eyes flickered, and his posture stiffened. “You would hold the man who saved the Her--the woman who closed the Breach and saved Haven from utter destruction? In Andraste’s name?”

Roderick hesitated, the words seeming to catch him off guard. Cassandra glanced at Cullen again, curious. He had nearly spoken the word that had been whispered on the tongues of the soldiers and townspeople gathered outside the cabin where Marana lay sleeping.

Herald. _The_ Herald.

“He’s an apostate,” the chancellor said, unknowingly echoing her words to Marana when they had met Varric and Solas near the Temple.

Cassandra gritted her teeth again. Is that what she had sounded like? So anxious to burn the word into another’s identity; a slave brand, condemning, all encompassing, forgiving of all abuse and discrimination when it was carried out “by the will of the Maker.”

“Apostate or no, he is much of the reason we are standing here, and not fighting to our last man against a swarm of demons,” she said, and her voice was low, her words precisely chosen.

He offered them one last scoff before turning on a heel and stalking back into the Chantry.

Cassandra let out a slow breath as she watched him go, not speaking until the door was shut completely. “Bastard.”

Cullen let out a “hmph” in agreement, but turned to her and asked “Are you really certain we can trust him? Solas, I mean."

“I’m...not sure. I think so.” She knew she didn’t need to explain this statement to Cullen. She had seen his eyes flicker and darken during the Chancellor’s speeches enough times to know that the certainty with which he spoke some of his rebuttals were not always so certain in his heart.

Cullen chuckled softly. "Roderick does make it easy to decide where you stand on things.”

They stood for a moment without speaking, listening to the whipping of the banners on the Chantry spires as they scraped across the sky Cassandra looked up at them, wishing there were some answer written there, some certainty that they really were headed down the right path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired, in part by the conversation Solas and the Inquisitor have in the Fade about the days after the Conclave explosion. ("I had no faith in Cassandra, nor she in me. I thought she was going to have me executed.") Obviously, they still aren't exactly buddies, but they would have had to reach some kind of understanding.
> 
> I also really like the scene in the intro...good grief, are we still there? I promise we will get moving soon...where Cassandra and Leliana declare their support for the Inquisitor to Roderick. To me, it felt like they had kind of been listening to him go on and on and on for days and finally had enough. 
> 
> Okay, some actual Solas/Lavellan time coming in the next chapter, I promise :D Thanks so much for your kudos and comments!


	5. A Slave to No One.

He stands in a forest courtyard, sun-warmed stones under his bare feet and a cool breeze playing at his nose and the tips of his ears.

Tiny shafts of sunlight light pierce through the lacy canopy of trees overhead. Birds whose calls have been lost to memory for centuries coo and chirp, swooping through the boughs, their tiny hearts beating in the thrill of whatever games they played.

He sees her, striding through the underbrush towards him, hand on the hilt of her sword, straight dark hair fanning out behind her head like a short silken veil that had been cut into strips.

She stops a few feet away and watches him with eyes like liquid copper, piercing when she wishes them to be, but warm when she smiles. He holds out a hand for her to take, hesitant, hopeful. Eyes rolling, she shakes her head, laughing as she places warm fingers around his.

Here, her laughter is silent, for he has never heard it.

Her skin blossoms into life under his. How many times had he held her hands in his in the days he had tended to her? He runs a thumb over her knuckles, the contours of his fingerprints catching on the patches of scar-tissue, built up over years of training with a sword. His forefinger traces the lines on the palm of her hand, feeling the callouses left by the leather grip. Tracing down the insides of her fingers with his, he feels the indentations left by the string of a hunter's bow on the inside of her knuckles. Finally, the tiny nicks on her fingertips that could only come from hours of using a sewing needle.

He steps closer to her, studying her face. She scar beside her mouth, right below the place her cheek catches when she smiles. The swirl of knot-work seared into her fawn-colored skin.

He raises his other hand, tracing the lines sweeping up her cheeks and over her brows, interlocking on the bridge of her nose.

He closes his eyes, and images appear like frescos on the inside of his eyelids.

Marana, bound in iron on a stone floor. A figure circling her. Cassandra? No. A man, armored, not in steel, but in ironbark.

A staff in his right hand, glowing with white fire, sketches a swirling motif in the air. As the head of the staff moves, fine lines of flesh burn away from her smooth face, and she is screaming.

Screaming to him.  _Solas, halani._

Eyes snapping open, he lunges forward to knock the man away, but sees only her standing in front of him. 

Her eyes, no longer laughing, bore through him as she tightens her grip on his hand. Like the eyes of an owl, they are unknowable. Wild, but focused, knowing, yet completely unaware of their own power. 

She is a slave to no one. 

His eyes open again, but this time, he feels the scratch of a woolen blanket against his bare skin. Drawing a sharp breath, he raises himself up onto his elbows, looking around him. Sunlight, afternoon sunlight, judging by the angle, streams through the cracks in the shuttered window. He hears the clanking of swords on bucklers, the ring of hammers on anvils. 

And a soft knock on the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Solas is the kind of guy who would memorize the contours of your hand. I can't decide if that's creepy or not. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, helani = help.


	6. Show Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marana tries to figure out a way to thank the man who saved her life. 
> 
> A little expansion/reimagining of the first conversation with Solas, using some of the in-game dialogue, but adding some art geek flirting.

Marana raised her hand to knock, but stopped just before her knuckles grazed the rough wood.

How did you thank someone for keeping you alive?

She had been awake for two days, and still, she hadn’t seen Solas once. Not walking through the village, in the tavern, or talking to...well...anyone.

Admittedly, she had been quiet herself. The decisions she was making, the things she was being asked...it was so strange. _They_ were all so strange.

The way they spoke to her, the way they looked at her. Her, the middle child of a Dalish scholar, who had been content to wander through fields and forests, capturing images in her mind that she could later turn into the thread paintings her mother had taught her to make. She thought of the weeks before Keeper Istimaethoriel had asked her to go to the Conclave. The shattering of their Clan’s peaceful little world.

More to give herself something else to think about than having made any real decision about what she might say to this strange man who had saved her life, she brought her knock down against the door.

While she waited for a response, she studied her left hand. In the afternoon sunlight, the Mark appeared as little more than a large crack in her calloused palm, much like the ones that opened there during the cold months, only instead of inflamed underlayers of skin, there was green light. Cassandra and Cullen had both asked if it pained her, and she had honestly responded that it didn’t. It was more that she was incredibly aware of it, and that it seemed to grow heavier when many of the townspeople were looking at her with those reverent eyes.

Her stomach did a side step when she heard a quiet stir inside the house. The door opened a crack, and for a split second all she could see was a cool gray eye and a strip of pale face. The eye widened slightly when it registered who she was, and the door swung open.

“Ah, the Chosen of Andraste, the Blessed Hero sent to save us all.”

Marana stared at him. Gods, even Cullen hadn’t...no. He was joking.

“Am I riding in on a shining steed?” she asked, surprising herself with how promptly the quip had come to her.

His eyes danced as he said, “I would have suggested a Gryphon, but sadly...they are extinct.”

She smiled, and then felt the moment for another comeback slip by.

Her eyes dropped from his, as she searched for words. Any words. “I didn’t get to say this that day in the mountains, but...thank you for healing me after I fell. For stopping the mark from...growing.”

She bit the inside of her lip as the words settled. They seemed so inadequate when compared to the debt she truly owed him.

“There were more pressing matters at hand in the mountains,” he said, his voice still light, but there had been a little catch in it somewhere what Marana couldn’t place.

“Besides,” he continued, “I haven’t exactly healed you.”

“Being able to walk and talk under my own power is a start.”

Her eyes wandered behind him, to the inside of the small house and she noticed the unmade bed and closed shutters. “I woke you. I’m sorry--”

“No,” he said quickly, “it was good that you did.”

A shiver came over her then as the freezing wind whipped between the houses and cut through the leather coat and vest she wore. She crossed her arms in front of her. He angled his body against the inside of the open door, indicating that she should come inside.

“Oh, no I shouldn’t have disturbed you to begin with,” she said shaking her head.

“Please, I’d like to have a word with you.”

She stepped inside and he latched the door behind them. It was a tiny place, with the bed in one corner, a small table with two roughly hewn chairs and a few shelves on the wall opposite the bed. The small pack he had carried when she and Cassandra had met him in the mountains was lying open on the table, its contents spread out across the surface. Embers glowed in the hearth next to the bed, but she smelled no hint of woodsmoke. Instead, the sweet, earthy scent of wilting elfroot filled her nostrils, coupled the musk of honey and something else she couldn’t place.

He raised a hand and the fire roared into life. The warmth washed over her like the water from the hotsprings she and the other women used to bathe in when they could find them. She felt herself smiling. Her mother used the tell her that lakes and rivers were all well and good for the men and the little children, but grown women deserved a moment to rest when they could get it. Marana’s heart clenched as she remembered, out of nowhere, when her _felaslin_ had first started and her mother had taken her to one of the hot mineral springs to soothe the pains in her belly.

She shook herself from these small memories. The only thing they were good for was a dull ache in her chest that threatened to swallow her.

She looked up to Solas to find him watching her, and she realized she had been standing there not speaking for several moments.

“Sorry,” she said lightly, “My mind was...somewhere else.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said with a small smile, “I imagine it’s quite a lot to take in.”

“Commander Cullen and Cassandra keep asking me my opinions on things like troop movements and armor requisitions. Sometimes I feel like I’d do better to close my eyes and point to choices on a list.”

He chuckled, and sat down in on one of the chairs, motioning for her to do the same in the chair opposite. “Joke as we might, posturing is necessary.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say to this. She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

He looked down at his hands, folded on the table, and then back at her, his head cocked to one side, eyes measured. “I’ve journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wards both famous and forgotten.”

He paused, his eyes far away. Marana tried to place his dialect. It was melodic, not Ferelden, but not quite the same as her kin. He had spoken the words like a hymn, a line of verse that had been carefully chosen and pieced together with loving precision. Not the first time he had spoken them, she thought.

“Every great war has its heroes," he continued, "I’m curious to see what kind you’ll be.”

Unbidden, a laugh forced its way out of Marana’s mouth. The idea that she was some great hero was funny enough, but the utter gravity with which he had declared it had been too much. She searched his eyes for the dancing she had seen there earlier, and to her slight mortification she couldn’t find it.

He had started at the sound of her laugh, and was now looking at her with some mixture of curiosity and disapproval.

 _Well done, da’len_ she scolded herself, _laugh at the man who has saved your life at least twice in the last week_.

Apart from quelling the speed of the mark, she thought of the barriers he had placed between her and the maws of demons as they had fought their way down the mountain path.

And, sweet Mythal, Varric’s words. _"He means 'I kept that thing from killing you while you slept.'”_

Not for the first time in her life, she was grateful she had inherited her mother’s dark complexion, so that the flush that rose up her neck and splashed her cheeks was not quote as visible as it would have been on one of her brothers’ snow-white faces. “I’m--Gods, I didn’t mean--”

His laughter interrupted her, warm and smooth. She chanced a look into his eyes, and found that the mask of disapproval had melted away, but the curiosity remained, and now, mercifully, was joined by the twinkle that had been there earlier.

“I do have a tendency to take myself far too seriously,” he said, waving a hand as though to brush away her embarrassment.

She breathed, and laughed again, more quietly. Then a thought struck her. “What did you mean ‘ancient ruins and battlefields?’”

“Any building strong enough to withstand the rigors of time has a history. Every battlefield is steeped in death.”

She cocked her head to one side, raising her eyebrows. She wanted him to continue.

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Both attract spirits. They press against the veil, weakening the barrier between our worlds. When I dream in such places, I go deep into the Fade. I can find memories no living being has ever seen.”

“You...fall asleep in the middle of ancient ruins.” Marana said. She thought of a cool breeze brushing across her face on a warm summer night, stars shimmering overhead and a bottle of spirits in her hand. She thought of sleeping on the stones where perhaps Mythal and Sylaise themselves had stood. She shivered slightly.

“I don’t know if that would be thrilling or terrifying,” she said, more to herself than to Solas.

He smiled, “I do set wards. And if you leave food out for the spiders, they are usually content to live and let live.”

She gave a startled laugh, and said, “I hadn’t even thought of that.” His eyes were searching her face again. Normally, she thought it would have made her feel like a test specimen in a healer’s pouch, but she felt so grateful that he wasn’t staring at her hand or gazing upon her with unquestioning reverence that she was content to let him search away, though she was still intrigued by this idea of him going to different places to dream of the past. “You must find some amazing things.”

“Indeed,” he said, and a shadow fell over his face, and his eyes had gone away again. “More often than not, it’s just sad to see what has been lost. But the thrill of finding the remnants of a thousand-year-old dream...I would not trade it for anything.”

His voice had quieted almost to a whisper by the last few words, and his eyes focused again on Marana, and she thought she saw a hint of defiance in them, as though he was daring her to ask him to trade his dreams and memories.

She didn’t look away. In fact, this was the first time since she had come to Haven that she felt like she was neither receiving advice nor being asked to give her own. Despite being simply curious about this man, she understood his desire, now more than ever, to fade into memories of lost and distant things. She also knew their power to destroy. So, for now, she wouldn’t let either of them veer down that road. _“In elgar sa vir mana, in tu setheneran din emma na,”_ she quoted, wishing that her father had been there to see her remember this line and use it in the correct context.

Solas raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, then closed it again, staring at her.

She felt a flush crawling up her cheeks again and wondered if she had the translation wrong. _Take spirit from the long ago, but do not dwell in lands no longer yours_. Yes, she was certain it was. Or as certain as her father had been when he’s found and translated it.

 _“Ma serannas,”_ he said, his voice still hushed, but no longer defiant. He was looking at her as though he was only just seeing her for the first time. "I...need to be reminded of that from time to time."

They held each other's eyes for a moment, before Marana glanced down at her hands and teased, “Well, if that’s all you need, I’m yours. Just don’t ask me to send scouts or troops anywhere.”

He chuckled, and when she looked up again, his face had returned to the calm, pleasant-but-impassive facade of a healer greeting a patient. Her eyes finally drifted to the objects spread across the table. Bundles of drying elfroot, tiny bottles of liquid that she couldn’t identify, a small knife, flecked with bits of green leaf. Her eyes fell on a book, bound with waxed cotton thread at the spine, and a leather pouch about the length of her forearm, lying with its flap open just enough so she could see tan bristles poking out of the end. Tiny cotton bundles tied with string and stained with pure, bright color were arranged in neat groups around a small mortar and pestle, and a jar of honey.

She reached out and touched the earthenware pot, running her finger along the smooth green glaze. “Were you mixing paints?”

"I was." 

“What kind?” she asked, cocking her head and surveying the materials he had laid out. “I mean, I’ve never seen pigments mixed with honey before. My mother always mixed colors for painting with bird eggs and clay.”

He smiled and reached into the pack, and pulled out a small wooden box. He set it down and opened it, and Marana saw a spectrum of tiny, solid blocks of color.  "They are a mixture of ground pigment, plant gum and honey. It's an old technique used by Orlesian artists to make quick studies for their frescos. These are much easier to carry around than jars of liquid paints.”

“Show me.”

She heard the eagerness in her voice and felt like kicking herself. But if he noticed, he didn’t seem to mind. He reached into the leather pouch and pulled out a brush, opened his book to an empty page, smoothing it with his free hand. Marana noticed how long his fingers were, and how delicately they handled these simple possessions that were so precious to him. He looked around for a moment and then picked up a small waterskin that had been hanging on the corner of the table.

“Hold out your hand.”

Understanding what he needed, she held out her unmarked hand, and cupped it, so it would hold the few drops of water he shook from the skin. He dipped the brush in the little pool of water in her palm and then touched it to one of the blocks of color in the box. He pulled a single, bold stroke along the paper, and a trail of brilliant blue followed.

“It’s so bright,” she said, thinking of the muted colors her mothers paints had always yielded. She’d always loved their earthy, opaque tones, but she thought of the lights and darks that could be layered with this transparent color and she smiled.

In the distance, she heard the clash of steel, and the shouts of Cullen’s recruits as they practiced their fighting stances just outside the village wall. Suddenly, it seemed so silly, so inconsequential to be sitting here playing with paints while the world was literally collapsing around her.

And they wanted her to fix it. It suddenly seemed so much. So _big_.

Her hand went slack, and water trickled down over her hand and darkened the unfinished wood of the table.

“Are you feeling well?” he asked, as he quickly put down the brush and started to rise from his chair. She held up her marked hand, motioning for him to sit back down.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, and it came out more sharply than she intended. “I’m just,” she started again, her voice more level, “Not accustomed to having quite this much weight on my shoulders.”

He was studying her again, and this time she wished he wouldn’t. She didn’t want him to see just how small she felt, or, honestly, how frightened, knowing that all of this would be written across her face, bold as a cloudless day.

“For you, I think it will get easier,” he said quietly.

She idly ran a finger through the little puddle of water and squinted against the sting of tears behind her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “It will really have to, won’t it?”

He nodded and said, “I will stay then. At least until the Breach is closed.”

The way he said it, like there had been a battle going on in his head during their entire conversation, broke through the veil of her dark thoughts. 

“Was there a doubt?”

He gave a little bitter laugh, and the shadow fell again over his face, “I am an apostate mage surrounded by Chantry forces. Cassandra has been accommodating, but you understand my caution.”

“You came here to help, Solas,”she said, extremely put off by the idea that Cassandra--that anyone--would disregard all that he had done, in the name of some absent god. “I won’t let them use that against you.”

The corners of his mouth quirked up again, and he said, “How would you stop them?”

“However I had to,” and when she heard the ferocity in her voice, the flush worked its way back up to her face. She could be so dramatic.

It must have surprised him, because he faltered “I--thank you,” and he was back to studying her with those eyes that missed nothing, and yielded little, though perhaps more than he realized. This touched him, she could see that. And she was glad. It was small recompense for saving her life.

“Lady Lavellan? Marana?

Josephine.

“You’re being summoned,” Solas said, back to being the vaguely amused, serene healer.

Marana laughed again, standing and stretching her arms. She motioned to the paint supplies strewn across the table. “Will you show me how to make these or no, _hahren_?”

Calling him _hahren_ had been a joke, but he looked up at her with a severe expression on his face, that only made the name fit him even more. “I shall,” he said, rising and crossing the tiny room to open the door for her, “I look forward to our next meeting.”

She suppressed a smile, but as she left, she briefly laid a hand on his arm, and said, _“Ma uth serannas_.”

He nodded once more, eyebrows knitting together for the briefest moment, as though something little and sharp had dug into him, and then abruptly vanished as he pulled his mouth up into a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art geek note: what Solas describes is (roughly) the real technique used during the 15th century for making watercolor cakes, and I feel like after using only handmade tempera paints (with the eggs and clay) it would be super startling to see pure, transparent watercolor pigments for the first time. If you are into that sort of thing. 
> 
> A little note on the elven: 
> 
> The little passage Marana quotes is from the DA:O DLC "Leliana's Song," and the translation is courtesy of the lovely folks on the Dragon Age Wiki. I thought it was fitting for Solas. 
> 
> felaslin - lit. "slow blood." If there's another elven word for menstruation, I couldn't find it, and this conjunction seemed as good as any...
> 
> Ma uth serannas - my eternal gratitude
> 
> Long note...thanks so much for the kudos, subscriptions and comments. You are all lovely :)


	7. Katari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Bull meets an intriguing redhead while the Chargers set up in a tavern along the Imperial Highway. A little look into Bull before he sets out out to investigate the Breach. Sorries in advance. This got dark really quickly.

The blue light of dawn was slinking into the small room as an unwelcome guest. It caught the flecks of water on the windowpane and made them sparkle. Perhaps they were trying to mimic the stars that had so briefly hung in the sky in the hour or so between when the rain had stopped and the sky started to lighten.

By the _ataashi_ , he had been spending too much time with the fucking bards.

The Iron Bull shifted his weight on the overstuffed but extremely narrow mattress of the bedstead, taking care not to crush or impale the ruddy-haired human serving woman sleeping next to him.

Well, she wasn’t actually a serving woman.

Not many serving girls in tiny village inns along had scarred-over arrow holes in both shoulders, a hip, and the opposite thigh, but it hadn’t taken his dozen or so years of training to crack her deception, even before taking her to bed. 

She knew that he knew she wasn’t a serving girl, and had known even as he and the Chargers had tucked into the brown bread and hot soup she had bought them. She had been too friendly with a group of muscled and scarred elves, dwarves and humans with a Qunari at their head, ordering the drinks. She had brought him seven giant tankards of ale, each time brushing his bare shoulders with her fingers, or making sure the tip of her long red braid brushed across his neck as she handed out the rounds.

Finally, he had had followed her through the kitchen and into the garden behind the small tavern and pushed her up against back wall, his hand pressed up against the bottom of her neck, not squeezing, but solid and immovable as iron.

She had let him catch her, and was choosing not to reach through the slit in the pocket of her dress to pull out the knife strapped to her thigh, just as he was choosing not to restrain her hands. 

“And who do you work for?” he’d asked, his voice as easy as it would have been if they were inside at one of tables, drinking and making the smalltalk that precluded a tumble in one of the tavern’s upstairs rooms.

She'd smiled, and given him the name of some high and mighty family that owned some such and such shipping company out of Val Royeaux.

He’d recognized the name insomuch as it was on a very long list of potential deadly rivals of the asshole aristocrats he and the Chargers were currently contracted to. Supposedly, they were protecting the family from assassins.

 _"Oh yes, Messier, you and your comrades will be a great asset to the prosperity of Val Royeaux_ ," Lady Vealaux--or more likely a decoy whose job it was to was to deal with the things Lady Vealaux didn’t want to soil her silk-covered hands with--had said when he had signed the contract.

They would be protecting a two hundred year-old tradition of efficiency and integrity in Orlesian importing and exporting from the menace of blah blah blah...

And would they also mind, _if_ they happened to have the time and resources and _if_  they were perhaps interested in making some extra gold, and _if_ the opportunity happened to present itself, gathering some information on the rival houses if they happened to get close enough to overhear some tidbits.

" _Oh of course, put it on the bill,"_  he'd said and they had parted ways and since then the whole thing had been an intensive study in utter boredom.

Convoys against the greenest--really, there had been no point even killing them--assassins he’d ever laid eyes on, discreet guard duty for a couple of grand(ish) balls, and an endless stream of shipping manifests that had yielding nothing more interesting than an impressive assortment of vulgar lingerie, and a plain box marked “leather goods,” being sent from Lord Lady Vealaux to one of the elven housemaids of Marquis Someone in Val Chevin.

That had admittedly given him and Krem a chuckle when they’d read it. He’d briefly lamented to his lieutenant that it was a shame they had not been hired by one of House Vealaux’s rivals, so they could quietly spread word of the lechrous fool’s predilections to break up the tedium. It would start with whispers in teeny taverns, then gossip at small social gatherings, and soon it would finally solidify into full pieces on the board of the next grand ball. At least that may have escalated into protecting a few people who actually needed protecting--like teenaged elven housemaids caught in the web of the Great Fucking Game.

Alas, they had put the scandalous manifest aside, and given themselves over to the lure of easy gold.

He would mention it to the Arquin in his next report. It would give his boss something to be righteous about, anyway. Even if it was useless gossip. 

Now they were en route to one of the family’s country estates in Val Foret, scouting the way along the Imperial highway before the family followed a few days later.

A few more vague threats had been thrown back and forth between himself and the non-serving woman and he’d let her go. Both of them knew the whole thing was a farce anyway. There was no point in her reporting back that House Vealaux had hired a mercenary company, and no point in him reporting back that there were spies on the road.

By the time the two of them had returned back inside the smoky tavern and he’d had two more mugs of ale, they had been talking and joking like old friends...not that he needed to be drunk to appreciate the creamy skin of her neck, or the sprinkle of freckles that adorned the swell of her bosom, strained against the tight bodice of her cotton dress. Or the tiny streams of her copper hair that fought the confines of the braid, as though they were beckoning his fingers to twist into them, tangling and tugging.

She was sharp, fearless, and he discovered that her obvious disguise _was_ the deception, for he had little doubt that she could get anything out of anyone if she put her mind to it. She was the sort of spy who made people spill their secrets in frantic gasps and exhausted whispers, rather than under the knife. Slowly, with a good deal of whining and creaking, the gears of his mind ground back into motion after months of disuse while he spoke with her, and it was with sheer joy and abandonment as he allowed himself to get swept up in her folly. She was a masterful opponent, for the game she played was all her own, and she knew every move, every cheat and loophole.

So long, it had been so long since he’d stretched himself like this, parrying with words and sommersaulting around questions. He could have fucking danced in relief, knowing these parts of his brain still worked.

As her fingers had snaked their way up his thigh under the table finding her mark and letting her eyes widen an imperceptible amount at what she’d found, he smirked, but his hands, folded in front of him on the rough table were suddenly, violently cold.

He waited, not breathing, for the brush of the desire demon’s nipples against his back, the flick of its tongue against his ear. Waited for the whispers, depraved, filthy, knowing he would succumb if they offered the right things in the right places.

Two heart beats, three, four, five, and still the whispers didn’t come.

By the tenth they still hadn't come and he was he was letting his own hand inch up her skirt, testing out how real her skin felt under his fingers, slowly letting himself breathe. By he twentieth, he was standing and turning toward the stairs, the non-serving woman following closely behind. He hadn't even asked her name. 

They’d fucked, hard and loudly, with her riding him so he could watch those tiny copper threads come unraveled and stick to her cheeks as she started to sweat. She was unmasked and unpainted, everything these Orlesian peacocks weren’t, and he hadn’t even had to draw upon memory to find his release, letting the feel of her shuddering around him and the taste of her sweat bring him.

Now, he studied her as she slept next to him, face pale and still as a full moon in the dawn light--yeah, definitely too much time with the bards--and considered waking her as he wondered what those lips would feel like on...

He hadn’t realized he was dozing until he felt warm sand and polished seastones under his bare feet. She was standing with him, looking out over the Boeric, and a thousand memories washed over him, long flattened down within him like apples in a ciderpress, even though he was certain he had never been on this beach with this woman.

They hooked into him and tugged, pulling him towards...something...he couldn’t quite get a handle on it.

“I know what you want,” she said, her voice too clear and too loud, the sound of the crashing waves suddenly gone.

He turned to look at her, and then in the time it took for him to shift his feet on the sand and stones, he knew.

She was smiling at him openly, as she had in the tavern the night before, eyes playful and teasing, hair playing across her still-flushed cheeks in the wind.

No. No, no, _no._

He wrenched himself awake, cursing his flabby mind for not seeing it sooner. In a second, he was straddling her, one hand to her throat, giving her no leverage this time. Her eyes flew open, clear and green and terrified. 

Her fright struck him as she gasped for air, and he loosened his grip for the barest of moments, but it was enough.

The desire demon threw him off of her, impossibly strong. He careened backward toward the foot of the bed, the tip of a horn catching on the rafter of the tiny room and making his teeth crash together on the tip of his tongue. As blood filled his mouth, he knew something was wrong. The demon should have been able to slither out from under him, her body fluid, nothing but fade dust or fade juice or whatever the fucking things were made of.

This one was flesh and bone.

This was an actual woman being possessed. A woman very much alive if her warm skin had been any indication.

He paused again, horrified, and knew he had a fraction of a second to make a decision. She sat up, still naked, still marked from his fingers and mouth and bile rose in his throat.

_Had this thing been inside her the whole time?_

When she spoke, her voice was not a sultry purr, as he’d been expecting. That would have been so much easier. The woman’s musical voice, light and clear as it had been the night before curled into his ears, gnawing at him as she said, “You don’t have to kill me. I’m not here to hurt you.”

He didn’t answer, so she continued “I know what you want.”

“I can get a piece of ass anytime,” The Iron Bull answered, hearing more bravado in his voice than he would have ever thought he could summon.

His insides were screaming.

She smiled, and it was a warm thing, a true thing. “You can. But this...” She glanced down at her body, scarred from years of assignments, one freckled breast slightly larger than the other. Whole and stunning and real.

“This is purpose. Truth. Challenge. Excitement. Purpose. _Sataareth_...”

She chuckled as her--no, _its_ \--eyes flashed, breaking through the mask, unable to help itself as it fed on him.

He’d made it so, so easy.

He let out a strangled sound, more out of frustration than anything else, and snatched the curved dagger he’d thrown on the little washtable by the door, his long arm easily able to span the distance from the foot of the bed. As his fingers found it, the demon shrieked, but instead of the demon, it was the woman, crying and scrambling back towards the headboard, begging for mercy.

He jammed the blade up under her ribs, feeling each tug of sinew and muscle giving way. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the pain and fear in her face, even if it was a facade. Probably.

The metallic pall of blood filled the tiny room, and it offered him the confirmation he’d dreaded. She’d been alive.

As the seconds passed, and Bull sat there, his blade buried in the chest of a woman he’d been peacefully sleeping next to minutes before, he felt something shift in his mind.

It felt, not lighter, exactly, but there was an absence of something. The feeling of fingertips leaving your skin after they had lingered so long you had forgotten you were even being touched. And he knew the demon was gone.

Opening his eyes, he withdrew his knife, wincing at the resistance it met. 

Carefully, he laid the woman down on the bed and covered her with the rag blanket that had fallen to the floor. He wished he’d known her name. Or maybe he didn't.

Shaking and still naked, he sunk to the floor, letting his back rest against the grimy plaster coating the wall. He sat there for what felt like a long, long time, his forehead pressed into a scarred knee. How could he have been such a fucking--

“Chief?” Krem’s voice bit through his thought, muffled behind the wood planks of the door.

He stood up, hastily pulling on his trousers as he tried to avoid hitting the low rafters with his horns again. He was buckling the leather bracer he wore over his left shoulder as his Lieutenant opened the door a crack, not looking in but murmuring “You awake?”

“Yeah, Krem, come in.”

\------------------------

He stepped over the threshold, a small smirk on his face as he tried not to look at the bed where he assumed he would see his Chief sprawled out with a naked lover draped over him as he so often had in mornings past.

He froze when he saw Bull standing, a little trickle of blood running down his chin. His eyes moved from the bloody dagger on the floor to the covered form on the bed and he raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I could have told you that was going to happen,” he said, and he struggled to keep his voice light, even as he made a motion to move toward Bull, concern edging its way into him. 

His Chief was no stranger to having to protect himself from unexpected attempts on his life, but everything about this scene was off. 

Bull laughed, and tried to give a sheepish shrug, but Krem was not fooled.

The Chief had let his guard down the night before, and the extent to which he was cursing himself was laced through his entire expression. The one-eyed face wasn’t as rock-solid as Bull fancied it to be.

Besides, Krem knew how much Bull had been enjoying himself talking to the lovely serving woman, and hadn’t been able to blame him. They’d kept little interesting company over the past few months, and most of them were climbing the walls, not just for lack of sex, but lack of stimulating conversation with people other than themselves.

The woman had been bright, red-headed and everything else Bull fancied in women and men.

Killing her had shaken him.

They stood in silence, looking at each other. Krem pursed his lips and gave a faint nod. _I’m sorry_.

Bull’s mouth quirked up in gratitude, and for a moment, Krem saw something else in the giant man’s single eye. He felt his head cock, trying to decipher it, but gave up. If Bull needed to tell him, he would when he was ready.

Krem had few secrets from anyone, and even fewer from his Chief, but he knew the reverse was not the case. This didn’t bother him much with regard to himself--Bull was too good a man to use a comrade's secrets as weapons--but he often found himself wishing Bull had someone to share his own with.

Bull cleared his throat and everything was back to business.

“Any news this morning?”

Krem hesitated, not liking to lay more weight on Bull, but knew there was no use in delaying. “Word has it that there was some kind of explosion in the Frostbacks. At the Temple of Sacred Ashes. And--” he stopped again, knowing that what he was going to say was going to sound patently foolish. “There’s a...break...in the sky. Demons are pouring through it in droves”

Bull’s eyes narrowed. “The Conclave where the Mages and Templars were supposed to be discussing peace?”

Krem nodded.

“And demons?”

Krem nodded again. “A lot.”

“Fuck.”

They stood in silence a bit longer, both lost in thought. Krem saw Bull’s eye move toward the bed, and then close, as he shook his great horned head, letting out his breath in a hiss.

“Orders, Chief?” Krem finally said.

“Get everyone up. We’re moving out as soon as we get some food in us.” “

To where?”

“The Frostbacks.”

Bull hesitated. “Which way d’you think would be faster?” he asked.

Krem quickly calculated in his head. “Well...we could book passage from Val Royeaux to Jader and then head south through the mountains. Or we could travel along the southern coast, though there are reports of Venatori attacking anything and everything all along the Coastlands.”

Bull considered. Then smiled. “We go on foot. Let’s give those bastards what they have coming. Two birds with one stone, eh?”

“Right, chief.”

“Oh, and send half the gold back to Val Royeaux.”

Krem grimaced. They had more than earned their fee from the Blighted nobles, but Bull was adamant about things like this. “Should I send a message with the gold?”

“Yeah. Tell them to go fuck themselves. But be more creative.”

Krem grinned and turned to leave. “Coming down?” he said as he was a few feet out of the door.

“Yeah, Krem, I’ll be down. I have a letter to write, and...” He trailed off, turning toward the bed again, and didn’t finish.

He didn’t really need to. “Right, Chief,” Krem repeated. He held Bull’s gaze for a minute longer, before turning to rally the Chargers.

\---------------------

Alone again, The Iron Bull held his breath for a moment, before letting it out, feeling it shudder as it passed through him. Krem was no fool, and a better friend he'd never had, but...no...he couldn't tell him the whole of it. 

He put his hands over his face, trying to catch the tiny pieces of his mind that chipped away as he thought of the body in the bed.

He hadn’t even known her name.

_Panahedan. Kost._

He may have spoken the words. He wasn't certain. But it was a long time before he moved again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Bull. I just want to hug him all the time. 
> 
> \-------------------
> 
> Qunlat Translations
> 
> Ataashi - the Glorious Ones (dragons)
> 
> Sataareth - "That Which Upholds." In this context, I'm using it to mean something like 'grounding, solidity, foundation' 
> 
> Panahedan. Kost. - Goodbye. Peace. 
> 
> Katari - One who brings death
> 
> Many thanks to the Dragon Age Wiki page for the translations.
> 
> \-----------
> 
> Thanks so much for being patient with me while I updated! I now have all my chapters mapped out, so I should be updating more regularly :)


	8. Cries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short foray into the sunny rainbow land in this guy's head...

Rays of morning sunshine were breaking through the dust of a tiny cabin deep in the Hinterlands.

Patches of light appeared and reappeared on the floor as the clouds skirted the sky, cutting across the dirt floor as a cruel mockery of a rose window. No jewel-bright symmetry, cast in ancient glass and lead; only bleak scars, fleeting and jagged.

Jagged too, were the cries. As broken and raw in their fear as they would have been jubilant in their laughter, for they were the cries of children.

Two girls, dark eyed and dark haired, beautiful and rosy as summer blooms. A boy, tall and fair, with steel-colored eyes, his jaw just beginning to show the signs of sharpening. His cry started as a man’s and broke halfway through as he threw himself over his sisters, showing more courage in his last moment of life than most grown men did in a lifetime. They rushed through the silence of the morning, growing louder with each passing second, like they were getting closer.

Now the cries of the children were joined by the lower timbre of woman’s. Still rosy at forty-three summers, full-bodied with the carrying and births of three children, with the same steely eyes as her son. Her first cry was for her husband, whose throat was slit before a word was uttered. He was dead even as she slipped a dagger out its small sheath and lunged in front of him, brandishing the sharp tooth with more skill than one might expect from a pampered lady of the Orlesian Court.

Her second cry was no girlish shriek, but a roar of rage as she drove the dagger forward into flesh, painting the front of her pale pink dress with long strokes of hot crimson. It grew louder as she was slashed from behind, and was broken with curses and a few sobs as she fell over her husband's corpse, but no less fierce.

Still louder came the cries of guards, a nursemaid, a footman.

On and on they went until a crash of steel-on-wood shattered through them, and Thom Rainier gasped himself awake, his eyes falling back onto the gashes of sunlight he’d been studying a moment before.

He stood slowly, bowing his back against the stiffness wrought from a night seated in a hard wooden chair.

Without frenzy or haste, he retrieved his heavy sword from where it had fallen from his hand as he had sat, dozing on his watch over the three young men who lay still asleep on fur bedrolls on the opposite side of the cabin. One, the son of a butcher from Redcliffe who had bludgeoned a man to death for attacking his sister. The other two were practiced thieves and conmen, never taking more than what they needed to feed or clothe themselves. So they told him. 

_Fools. To follow him on any path._

He shook his head. It was the clang of his falling sword that had startled him, and his heart still raced from it, but the slaughter of Callier and his family was a constant specter, ever poised in the shadows and waiting for even the briefest wandering of his mind or barest moment of sleep to pounce on him. It was a constant, a piece of him that could never be cut away. 

As he stood, he brushed back his hair with his hand and was on the way to his pack and waterskin before he realized that the sounds of the cries had not been wholly imagined. Glancing out the paneless window, his eyes fell on a murder of crows that had gathered beneath the little grove of trees next to the cabin. They were slowly hopping their way to the edge of the lake, in quest of unseen morsels of food in the wild grass, their cawing growing fainter and fainter with each passing moment. 

He looked back at the men--boys really--and wondered what they dreamed. If the cries of the murder had ventured into their corners of the Fade, wringing out of them some old terror. 

In the distance he could hear the snapping of twigs and creaking of low branches, prompting the crows to take to the wing. 

His sword was a welcome weight in his hand as he reached for the buckler standing upright by the doorframe. He felt the twin gryphons inlaid on the grip as he hefted it, an old friend ready to stand with him against whatever malice the forest held. 

One last look at the sleeping boys as he stepped out the door. There would be other days. Other chances for them. 

He was taking this one and keeping it all to himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...j/k he is a hot mess. 
> 
> Ugh. Blackwall. I liked him, then I HATED him, then I was like "ehhh I GUESS you're trying to make up for it," and now that I am attempting to write him, I'm back to hating him for being a murderer but loving him poetically. 
> 
> Lots of hugs to everyone for sticking with me as I finished up a crazy string of projects that didn't leave me any time for this little adventure. Thank you SO much for the kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions.


	9. Chantry Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen ties himself up knots. Varric helps. Then doesn't.

Cold. It was always cold here.

It was a cold that struck you when you stepped into it, somehow always blowing into your face, stinging your eyes, no matter what direction you faced.

A cold no amount of movement or distraction entirely broke.

A cold that made the little hairs on the inside of your nose freeze together.

Despite this, Cullen Rutherford had shed the heavy coat and armor he’d put on for the day’s meetings. Sweat dripped from under his arms and trickled down his sides beneath his loose-fitting shirt even though his bottom lip was utterly raw from the gusting wind. He could taste blood oozing out of tiny cracks in the chapped skin.

He licked it away as he easily parried a sloppy blow from the young soldier he was sparring with. Alec, his name was.

He was a good fighter, but clearly unaccustomed to fending off two-handed blows. If Cullen was thinking of the right person, he was a former squire of a Chevalier who Cassandra had recruited somewhere in Orlais. Consequently, most of his training would have been with a sword and buckler, and so too would most of his opponents'.

The boy swore under his breath as he struggled to fall back into the unfamiliar rhythm. He was tired, his swings were less focused, and he was uncertain of how to use the shield offensively while accounting for the wider swings of Cullen's longsword. Cullen advanced, side-stepping a horridly ill-timed shield-bash, and deftly brought his sword down for what would have been a killing blow to the neck.

“Maker’s balls,” Alec hissed as he stepped back and ran a forearm across his sweaty brow. “Is it me who’s deplorable or are you just that fucking brilliant?” he asked, and then added a hasty “Commander,” at the end of it as Cullen raised an eyebrow.

“I suppose I can settle for ‘fucking brilliant’” Cullen said as he flexed his hand and tried to maneuver the sweaty leather of his glove away from his skin.

The boy laughed and relaxed, and Cullen felt a tiny jolt of pride that he had put the green recruit at ease.

That he could still do things like that seemed a small miracle to him on days like this.

He’d been listening to himself bark at the soldiers--and everyone else--for days and even he was sick to death of hearing it. And, Sweet Andraste, he was starting to think of them them all as ‘boys,’ and ‘girls.’ Like they were children under his charge and he was some aging mentor, bitter and resentful of their young lives and of all the things they had yet before them.

“You just need more practice with different opponents,” Cullen said as he sheathed his sword. “Next time Harding is back I’ll have her shoot some arrows at you.”

“Commander...” the boy-- _Alec-_ -started, and there was an actual pinch of fear in his voice.

All the soldiers had seen Lace Harding shoot. They knew that any bout with her and her bow would end swiftly and painfully for the party on the opposing side.

“They’ll be practice arrows,” Cullen said, not smiling but with a tone of mock-defensiveness that went over Alec’s head, because the young soldier said, more to himself than to Cullen “I wouldn’t fancy her shooting wildflowers at me from that cursed bow of hers.”

“At least your arms won’t be tired,” Cullen said as he hefted the boy's smaller longsword and let a smile break onto his face.

He pulled his coat back over his shoulders, which were, if he wasn’t mistaken, starting to freeze solid in the wind. “Go over and run through a few drills with Carad...you could both use the shield practice.”

“Yes, Commander,” the soldier answered, searching Cullen’s eyes as though trying to figure out what to make of him. He took a few steps toward the practice field before saying “Sir?”

“Hmm?” Cullen replied as he turned back to Alec.

He really was so young, Cullen thought as he waited for a response. Those wide open eyes and easy smile. Repentant of insubordination but truly caring little what an unfamiliar authority figure thought of him.

“Do you really think...is she...the _elf_...?” he trailed off, uncertain of how to ask the question.

He didn’t have to finish. Cullen understood both the boy’s uncertainty and apprehension in voicing it.

“I don’t know,” he answered quietly. _Though I truly wish I did._

“Could she be, Sir?” he barreled on, seeming to take a bit of courage from Cullen’s hesitation. “An _elf_?”

It was the second time he’d said “elf” with that...tone...that Cullen nearly always felt his hackles raise against.

He didn't respond, but cocked his head at the boy as, not for the first time, he marveled at how queer a thing prejudice was.

Bloated nightmares, ripe with abomination and corruption tore him out of sleep three nights out of every five. Weeding through the ugly, thorny overgrowth of his own and others' misconceptions and preconceived notions kept sleep just out of his reach _every_ night.

When morning came, he couldn’t often quantify the time he’d lain awake after he’d snuffed his candle, but he was willing to bet it could be measured in hours on the nights after meetings with Marana Lavellan. The Herald. The Savior. The one who reminded him so much, so dearly of _her._ Reminded him of a life that seemed hundreds of years ago.

When he’d first seen Lavellan in the mountains, memories had bubbled up in him like steam from a hotspring, not unpleasant, but apt to burn if lingered over for too long.

The stony echos of footsteps in The Circle Tower, the tangs of burning elfroot and iron and dusty parchment. Flickering glances and timid smiles turned to breathless, foolish touches turned to stifled, helpless moans up against a remote tree down by the lake. Tracing the swirling lines-- _so similar_  to Lavellan's--on her cheeks with his shaking fingers as her dusky skin flushed darker and her eyes grew wide with that sheer burning want you only feel when you’ve never known anyone or anything else.

That’s all it had been, really. Want. For both of them. 

A life secluded, desires practically prodded with hot irons when they presented themselves. Well. What had the people in charge of their lives honestly expected to happen?

Through the years since that sunny, unseasonably warm day, through the other women he’d taken to his bed, he’d wondered at the blinding intensity of his want for an elven mage all those years ago.

Not at the wanting of  _her_ , surely.

She had been his friend. Beautiful, capable, a finer first love than any man--especially him--deserved.

But even now, as he stood freezing in the mountain cold, millenia away from the person he’d been then, he wondered if the majority of his want had been due to her being a complete other to him. Exotic. _Forbidden.  
_

And if that desire didn’t make him as ugly as those templars in Kirkwall, who’d paid for elven whores to warm their beds in the darkness then turned and spat upon them in the light.

He’d loathed those men.

He’d gritted his teeth and clenched his fists hard enough so that his fingernails drew blood from his palms when they would talk about their romps through Lowtown taverns. He loathed the people here who looked at Lavellan as though she were some kind of newly discovered animal. He loathed the comments, the whispers, the doubts, all of which he knew would have been non-existent had she been a human from a notable family.

Most of all, he loathed his own understanding, perhaps even empathy, of their doubts.

He thought back to the images of Andraste his boyish mind had conjured; tall, radiant, shining with golden hair and bright green eyes. He supposed she could have been the grown-up version of any of the girls he’d known, any of his sister’s childhood companions he'd felt a twelve-year-old's affection for, but the universal feature had always been _human._

He was no fool. And the idea that Lavellan was somehow less of a warrior, less of an individual, because she was an elf had not occurred to him. He recognized talent, intelligence, true ferocity when he saw it. He’d seen Lavellan spar with a few of the soldiers, shaky at first with days of inactivity, but as she’d fallen back into the rhythm, as her hands reacquainted themselves with her sword and her feet with firm, frozen ground...never had he seen a more fluid, tight fighter. She fought like there was glass box around her, never letting a lazy hand or elbow pass into her opponents’ space unless moving in to strike.

Then there was no stopping it.

Yes, even now as he watched her cross the frozen courtyard to the smith, staring down at the sword and two long daggers in her hands, perhaps planning out the adjustments she would request--not that they had much to work with--he both admired and wondered.

Wondered at what he would do in her place. Wondered if she felt the eyes that were always nearly upon her. Waiting for...what? A mistake? A defensive remark? An open challenge? An acknowledgement of the thing every single one of them, with their Chantry Sisters' voices whispering in their ears, were thinking and didn’t have the balls to say out loud?

_Could a Dalish elf however strong, intelligent, and perhaps even kind be Andraste’s chosen?_

Yes. He did loathe himself for understanding their doubts.

The same way, he supposed he’d loathed his understanding of the Kirkwall Templars’ lust for elven women. Hadn't he felt the same thing? Hadn't lonely nights in soldiers' barracks at Kinloch led his mind to wander to thoughts of his hands, so much bigger than hers, circling her impossibly slender waist? How her small breasts would feel pressed up against his chest, cupped in his hands, pulled into his mouth? 

The slowly shrinking piece of his mind that was in charge of self-preservation reminded him that was just _lust._  That he'd had the same thoughts and relished living out the same fantasies with other women. That they were really no different from any other person's wants and desires.

But he'd grown more and more certain over the years that he'd both desired and hated her for the same thing. The _f_ _orbidden._

He shook himself. Not the time.

He wrapped his ragged and impossible thoughts up in tidy knots by assuring himself that, of course, he was nothing like them. That he would never speak those words or have those doubts or treat an elven, or any, woman like that--an easy fancy to be fucked and thrown away.

_But isn’t that just what you did? Once you saw the reality of what being with her could turn into..._

It had been  _ten_ years ago, and if he had been who he was now, today, he would have never been so utterly foolish and cruel. 

_But--_

“Soldier,” he said, laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “She saved us. Without hesitation or expectation. Don’t forget that.”

“Sir,” Alec said hastily and made his departure. Cullen thought he saw some of his own shame reflected in the boy’s face before he turned.

Running his tongue over his chapped lips again, he took a breath. He would not let himself hate like those Chantry Sisters, use like those Templars, or worry over the woman's blood and ear-shape like blighted  _Roderick,_ who he was always a step away from shutting in the Chantry privy and barring the door from the outside. 

 

He started out across the courtyard toward the smith, trying not to catch the eye of anyone who would stop him to ask for advice or clarification on anything.

“I think she might want to be alone,” a voice called from behind him. Cullen started and turned, eyes falling on Varric’s diminutive form, wrapped in a heavy coat against the bitter wind.

He strode slowly back toward Varric, nodding more to himself than the other man.

“Cassandra told me the Hinterlands were worse than we’d feared.”

Varric bobbed his head once in agreement. “Wasn’t pretty.”

“Templars?”

Another head bob. “And mages. Just laying into each other.”

“No. I mean I know about that, but...were the templars...”

“Growing red lyrium out of their faces? Not that I saw. But I’m betting they’re hiding out there somewhere.”

A trickle of dread fell down into Cullen’s gut. Leiliana’s scouts had brought back reports of templars, faster, larger, stronger than they had a right to be. With glowing red eyes and stubs of scarlet crystal cutting through their skin. Cassandra had sniffed at the last part, sure that the youthful scout had been frightened and imagining things.

Since that report--two days ago, now--Cullen’s nightmares were now laced with bloody eyes and the wretched animal grunts of templars gone berserk.

Varric fished around inside of his coat and brought out a small hipflask.

He didn’t speak as he handed it up, but Cullen wondered, not for the first time, if the dwarf had some extra sense that helped him read the troubles of those around him. 

He smirked as Cullen took it, relishing the burn of the liquor as it flooded his mouth. It was smoky-sweet velvet and far too good to have come from anything the Haven Tavern stocked.

“If you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll get you a bottle,” Varric said as he produced a piece of paper from another pocket of his coat, “You’re going to need it when you see this.”

As he took it, Cullen said, “Lavellan mentioned wolves being possessed by demons as well?”

“According our bald encyclopedia,” Varric said, and Cullen chuckled, in spite of his gray mood.

“It didn’t seem to be that simple, though. I don’t know. He was pretty bent on making sure she closed the Rift that was causing it.”

Cullen nodded, then voiced something that had been bothering him. “Do you think it hurts her when she closes them?”

Varric paused, eyes squinting and leaving the present for a moment before snapping back, “If it does, she isn’t going to tell anyone,” he said finally, “For what it’s worth, it doesn’t seem like it does. I think it wears on her though.”

“Of course,” Cullen said, absent, lost again in that web of guilt, self-assurance and the dawning and brutal certainty that they were _using_ her.

As their weapon.

As their _symbol._

And would _they_  dismiss her, scorn her, when, and he was certain it was a  _when_ , she proved too  _Dalish_ for them? When her  _otherness_ was no longer safely within their control? Would they turn cold and hateful towards her for little reason other than that she shared a heritage with people they didn't understand? 

Suddenly the swigs of liquor he’d drunk felt right at the brim of his throat and he was swallowing hard against a violent wave of nausea. Suddenly the whole thing felt so utterly false in the face of the sneers, the whispers, the doubts. And not for the first time that day, that  _hour,_ Cullen was hopelessly tangled up in his own mind, trying to reconcile desires with prejudice, both real and imagined. 

Varric raised an eyebrow at him, and shook his head. “I can’t tell if that’s your Chantry-boy guilt or not but...but if it is...” And here, Varric’s face softened, and Cullen was a bit startled to see what was behind the dwarf’s clear eyes. “If it is,” he continued, letting his voice fall lower, so Cullen had to strain to hear him over the clanging of swords, “You sure aren’t alone.”

The two men stood in silence for a moment longer, before Cullen held out the dwarf’s hipflask.

As Varric took it, Cullen laid a hand on his shoulder. “Save the comforting,” Varric said, not shrugging off the touch but grimacing as he gestured toward the piece of paper still clutched in Cullen’s other hand, “You’re going to be the one who needs it once you see who that’s from.”

A glance at the front of of the folded letter confirmed what Cullen had already suspected. All the same, he found his mouth dry when the familiarity of the hand it was written in jabbed at him like a little knife.

“Did she have it sent to you?"

Varric sighed. “No. One of Leliana’s people found it on a dead messenger.”

“And she was afraid to give it to me.”

Varric smirked, “She said something about you chewing her head of for mentioning it.”

Cullen shrugged in agreement.

“Right, well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll have someone send you that bottle.”

Cullen snorted. “Sooner might be better,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for the dwarf to hear. He glanced back down at the letter.

Bethany Hawke’s firm, neat hand stared back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be a long note, so bear with me. 
> 
> Serious stuff: I often wonder what it's like for people like Cullen and Cassandra, who have such a real, deep connection to a very flawed religion, but who are actually decent, intelligent people who can understand persecution and privilege and how it applies to them as humans. We see a bit of Cassandra's journey in that vein but not much of Cullen's. Yes, we see him try to reconcile being a generally pretty good guy with being a Templar and the not so great things they're responsible for and try to work out his fear of mages and possession. But when you play as an Elven Inquisitor and don't romance him there isn't much heed given to how he would react to a Dalish elf being the Herald. I figure he would see and be sensitive to all of the racism, but not unaware of his own past and own expectations. 
> 
> Which leads me to his love life. In my head, Cullen has a thing for women he's told (by God and everyone else) he shouldn't touch. Yeah, I know. But it's pretty much canon that he at least had a thing for the female mage Warden in DAO and I always kind of wonder if part of him wasn't just using that relationship to rebel against a religion he's starting to have less and less faith in. And Bethany...you'll just have to wait and see:) 
> 
> One last thing: When I made my Lavellan, I realized as I was just getting out of the intro how much she looked like my Warden from my 'canon' DAO play through. So Marana reminding him of his old flame is a nod to that happy accident. 
> 
> ALL THE NOTES. Hugs and thanks, as always!


	10. Still Only Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This supposes the rifts are affecting wolves elsewhere in the Hinterlands. Marana brings a (super awkward) party out to search for Blackwall and they run into some stragglers. Solas is not happy about it.
> 
> As short and inconsequential as this quest is in-game this banter still gets me:
> 
> Solas: The Breach may have driven them mad... or perhaps a demon took command of the pack.  
> Cole: Do you know a lot about wolves?  
> Solas: I know that they are intelligent, practical creatures that small-minded fools think of as terrible beasts.

“We’re not going to bring the bard with us, next time, Varric.”

“Suit yourself, Seeker...I can do the singing.”

The towering woman tuts as she stands, waving her hand and stalking off toward her tent.

Varric glances at him and gives a small wink across the fire.

“Can you sing, Master Tethras?” he asks, only half in jest. 

The dwarf snorts. “There’s a reason I write books.”

He feels a smile creep over his mouth as he cocks an eyebrow. “Bring one next time then. I’m curious to hear more of your tales.”

“You might regret it,” the Seeker calls from where she’s seated herself, whetstone resting on a thigh and laying out her sword and knives in front of her. “They’re practically nothing but smut.”

“How would you know?” Varric shoots back, glancing over at her with unmasked curiosity.

He lets the pointless bickering slide over him as he returns to the book propped up on his knees, fingers brushing over the paper. It’s thick, probably from the end of a pulp barrel where there had been too much to throw away, too little to pull a full roll, but the surface is like fine velvet under his fingers. Masterful.

Marana had brought it to him after their last journey out into this wilderness, in thanks, she said, for healing a small cut on her right side.

 _It was nothing_ , he’d said, but taken it with a grateful nod. A small gift for a small deed.

The simplicity of it had surprised him, and wrenched at him. He'd not been prepared for the intensity or frequency with which she did things that brought unbidden smiles and flashes of burning curiosity.

He looks over at her. She’s laying on her back in the cool grass, a leather-clad ankle resting on her bent knee. Her head lays against the birch log the two of them had dragged over for kindling, her dark hair sprawling out over the white bark as she sinks lower, so absorbed in the work her fingers are doing with needle and silken thread that she doesn’t notice the true awkwardness of her position.

The evening is warm, and they’re camped about a league from Lake Luthias in the Hinterlands. Close enough to the Crossroads to let their guard down, to build a fire, and to absorb themselves in distractions without keeping a watch, but far enough so that the hum of merchants, travelers and roadside Andrastian preachers is all but faded. The stillness of the evening is a soothing balm to his ears. They'd met no resistance that day, no bandits seeking treasure, no rogue Templars with a lust for apostate blood. Directly north of them, there's a sloping expanse of trees that will offer relative shelter from rain and wind, and to the west, the road winds through a still-sunny field. 

Conversation, as usual, is strained, and has been since their departure from Haven early that morning.

They’d received word from one of the Inquisition scouts of a Grey Warden holding off bandits somewhere in the South, and the woman they called The Nightengale was adamant they make contact with him.

From the slightly open doorway, he’d listened to the conference back in the Haven Chantry, occasionally catching a sliver of a face or back as they circled the heavy oaken slab at the center of the room. Marana had been stationary, hands resting on the very edge of the table, absently running her fingers over the grain of the wood. Her amber eyes were far away, and the monotonous rhetoric was clearly making no impression on her.

The Commander, also silent, had stopped pacing. He was studying her as well, and the look on his face was difficult to read. Pity? Guilt? No. Something far more complex. He crossed and uncrossed his arms more than once and--

...ah...

It was difficult to notice, but as he focused his eyes more closely he noticed the tiniest tremor in tall man’s hands when he held them at his sides.

_How deep run the secrets of men, both noble and savage._

The look on the Commander's face swims to the front of his mind as he brings broad strokes of hard willow charcoal down onto the beautiful paper. It’s the color of a fawn, only a shade or two lighter than Marana’s skin, and the way it pulls on the charcoal as he drags it across the surface brings him a splash of sheer delight he isn’t ready for. He feels the corners of his mouth quirk up as he works...using his middle finger to smooth the hard lines, relishing the subtle texture of the fine fibers under his skin. It comforts him, foolishly, in the most base and simple way, to let his hands move through these motions that have so long been so familiar to him.

He hears the tiniest hum of what he thinks is laughter from where Marana lies, and he glances up to find her eyes on him. For the first time since he’s met her, she looks like she might be nearing something like contentment. He starts to speak, his own forgetfulness of reality still clinging to him, when a sound cracks the still evening like a stone hitting a mirror.

He and Marana are on their feet before the source of the sound registers, before Varric and Cassandra even hear it.

It had been a snarl, a jagged thing, and now the snap of twigs is weaving towards their campsite out of the trees. 

He brings his focus to the very front of his mind, searching the gloom of the treeline for...

...there...

These aren’t the primal sounds of hungry beasts in the woods. There's too much purpose, too much _glee_ in them. The corruption twists around him as he presses still further, trying to discern their numbers.

Grabbing up his staff, he looks at Marana, who is unsheathing her sword, and says, “Wolves.”

“How many?” Cassandra is approaching, drawing her own sword and retrieving her shield from where she’d laid it when they’d set up camp.

Again, he starts to speak but Marana cuts him off. “At least four.”

He glances at her. She’s no mage, so this isn’t blind pawing at the air with magic, feeling around until it hits something. These are her own senses, sharpened to deadly points from a mortal lifetime of hunting and tracking.

How lazy he has become.

“There will be more further into the trees and along the road” she's saying. “These will drive us to reinforcements. There’s probably a den not far from here.”

“No,” he says quickly, “this isn’t a pack hunt.”

Marana narrows her eyes as she studies him. “Shit,” she hisses after a moment.

“Wait. _More_ possessed wolves? I thought we fixed them last time we were out here.”

Varric is threading a bolt onto his machine bow, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Evidently not.”

“But I closed the rift that was corrupting them.”

“We must have had the wrong one,” Cassandra says as she raises her sword, “Is there another close by?”

Marana squints into the distance. “I think so.”

He searches but doesn’t feel anything. Pursing his lips in frustration, he tries to focus through the Anchor on Marana’s hand.

Her eyes are flashing back and forth, clearly formulating a plan in her mind. “Split up,” she says, eyes still focused on the treeline, “Solas, you and Cassandra go by the road--”

“ _No_.”

He practically hisses the word, and it’s echoed in Cassandra's higher timbre, but louder and with more ferocity. 

Turning to glance over his shoulder, his eyes meet the Seeker’s as he opens his mouth, then closes it again, wondering. 

He had challenged Marana because he wanted to stay with her. The thought of her hacking her way through an unknown number of corrupted wolves in a murky wood with no magical barriers is...unsettling...but also impractical. She's more important than any of them.

He wonders if Cassandra’s protest had been similarly tactical.

“Are you worried I’ll call down a storm while your back is turned, Seeker? In that case, I should think you would want to keep an eye on me.”

The look on her face is one of deepest disgust as she answers “I was merely  _thinking_ , that she should go by the road and I’ll cut through the wood with one of you to ensure she’s not taken by surprise.

“If anyone’s interested in a dwarf’s opinion--”

“ _Enough._ ”

They all turn to look at her.

_A slave to no one._

He feels the corner of his mouth quirk up again as he watches her in the moment before her next words. Her face is set, eyes lit with the fire that's been lacing through his mind, in the Fade and out of it since he'd first seen her fight.

Unbidden, completely unexpected but as an old lover seen through a throng...nearly forgotten but familiar and utterly real, he feels a glimmer of pride that he'd not expected in connection to one of the mortals who played at being Elvhen.

“Solas, go with Cassandra along the road. Varric and I can take care of the ones in the trees, and then cover you with our bows. If Solas sees any sign of a rift, he can signal.”

“You need more protection,” he says quickly, and her eyes flash hotter. 

He imagines her then, silent and fluid, gliding through a forest with that same gleam in her eyes as she works through a plan to fend off a band of bandits or Templars or the like. Then he thinks of the poor wandering fools he's seen on the fringes of small towns, dressed in rags and bearing slave brands and spouting phrases their mothers’ mothers had seen on the bones of Elvhenan. Words and songs their fleeting mortal souls could not possibly understand. Would they stand at her back when the time came? 

“They’re still only wolves,” she says as she shoulders her hunting bow and motions to Varric, who hesitates for a moment but seems to think better of challenging her again.

Summoning more mana than was probably wise for just one cast, he lets it flow from his fingers to form a stalwart barrier around Marana and Varric.

Marana nods at him in thanks before motioning Varric forward into the trees. She’s silent on her soft leather soles, and Varric, surprisingly, is not much louder as they move, their feet searching out patches of pine needles and mud instead of twigs and dry leaves.

Almost at once, though, a beast flies at the dwarf, and with a flick of a finger, a bolt flies from his bow and into its right eye.

He can feel himself flinch at the sound of the yelp wrenched from the creature's throat, for as corrupted as it had been a moment before, he feels it die as it had lived most of its short life: only a wolf.

“Maker,” Cassandra breathes.

“I don’t think he’s got much to do with it, Seeker,” Varric says as he draws another bolt.

“Let’s go,” Marana whispers, though in her face he reads the same sorrow he feels in his heart.

The Seeker’s wary eyes are on him as he moves past her, drawing up another--less consuming--barrier around the two of them.

They walk quickly out of the campsite and onto the road, less travelled than in many parts of this land but still relatively beaten down with caravan wheels and boot soles.

He focuses his ears on Marana and Varric’s progress through the trees--marveling still at how quiet they are.

Once, twice, three times, the quiet is pierced through by the quiet thwap of arrows being loosed from Marana’s bow, and yelps that slice him, childishly, foolishly each time.

 _They’re still only wolves._ Wolves being taken from their own minds, their beautiful, practical souls.

_His fault._

Two more of the wretched things are approaching from the field to their left as he and Cassandra move down the road. Their black, hulking bodies move through the tall grass, too silent, too aware.

Gritting his teeth, and feeling the hairs on his arms stand on end with the charge, he looses two bolts of white hot lightning, one right after the other. He parts his lips so he can breathe through his mouth and not smell the burning fur and cooked flesh.

 _Ir uth abelas ma lethallin_.

“Pardon?”

Careless. 

“Apologies, Seeker,” he says, mildly, “I was merely--”

He stills.

Yes.

A tug, a little snare in his focus, barely discernible amidst the uproar of the wolves and the pressing despair, he feels... “The rift is up ahead,” he says quietly to Cassandra, certain the ears of the remaining wolves will be trained on him.

The last of his mana, stretched so thin to begin with--maintaining two strong barriers and having wasted much, so much, on the bloated power of the lightning--is spent on signaling to Marana and Varric. Even as the signal leaves his staff he feels the strength of the barriers surrounding them start to wane.

Cassandra cuts down another beast that he hadn't even heard approaching from behind them, so focused was he on keeping the barriers up.

Whirling around, he lets loose another small burst of energy from his staff at a second flanker, and hears Cassandra’s shield connect with a skull.

Suddenly, an arrow zings by his left ear, hitting its mark in yet another beast’s throat as Marana and Varric are running out of the trees toward a sickly green glow coming from beneath a rock outcropping a short distance away.

He hurries to get closer to them. One barrier around all of them will be much easier to maintain than the two smaller ones.

As he reaches them, Marana is shouldering her bow and unsheathing her sword in two swift movements. Three more of the beasts are waiting inside the little chasm where the rift breaks the still, damp air.

He can see their eyes now. Green film coats the yellows and blues and greens and an unnatural  _glee_ shines through as they close in. Behind the glee he sees the truth.

Fear, confusion, longing to be free. 

 _“Solas._ ”

Varric’s voice as he hurries to thread another bolt, roaring at him, jerking him out of his thoughts.

Too late, he sees that one of the remaining beasts behind them has separated from the others, and is running at Marana’s back. Worse still, his momentary lapse in concentration has caused the barrier around her to dissipate enough for the unnatural strength of the animal to push through it. Lacking the time to cast anything worth the expense of energy, he sets his feet, and hefting his staff like a spear, plunges the double-edged blade at the hilt into the wolf’s side, but not before it sinks its foamy teeth into the back of Marana’s left thigh.

She lets out a little gasp as it dislodges, and the creature is howling in pain at its wound.

Marana sets her jaw and moves toward the rift, trying to get close enough to use the Anchor. Another bolt from Varric’s direction and the wolf, muzzle smeared with blood, falls and doesn’t rise again.

The moment of rest allows him to summon enough energy to cast a stronger barrier around Marana as she limps forward. The the rift starts to hiss and sputter with voices so ancient and so vile he can’t make sense of them. They sense their little door to this side of the Veil will be soon destroyed.

He can’t be certain, but they seem louder, more direct, more _real_ to him this time.

Cassandra lets out a sound--part battle frenzy, part relief--as she fells the last of the beasts.

Marana jabs her hand toward the rift, muttering something he can’t clearly make out. The other two bring hands up to shade their eyes from the burst of light that pours from her. As he has done previously, he watches as she works the rift closed, feeling the now familiar pull of the Anchor’s energy channeled through her body, deep down in his very being. He sees her face in profile, brows knitted in pain at her wounded leg. Her cheeks, sweaty with the effort, are shining in the green-white light, rendering the Hearthkeeper’s gaudy brands nearly invisible.

For the barest moment, he feels himself, along with her, on a brink between the firm ground of this warm green evening and falling into the toxic damp of the Raw Fade. Another moment, and he feels the tension in her body shatter as the Rift snaps closed and realizes it's been at least a half a minute since he's taken a breath. His shaky exhalation mirrors her own.

She grits her teeth again against the more concrete sensation of pain she must feel at the now gushing wound on her leg. Varric steps forward to put a hand on her arm to steady her. She shakes his hand off at first but then grips his shoulder as she tries to put weight on her leg.

“Should we build a stretcher?” Cassandra is hastily wiping the blood from her blade with the hem of her tunic and he realizes that neither she nor Marana are actually wearing any armor. Of course, the whole thing had happened much too quickly for fastening and buckling.

She retrieves Marana’s forgotten bow and sword, shoulders them, and moves to grab the girl's other arm.

“No, I can make it.” Marana’s eyes are fixed on the ground a few feet in front of her as she grips Varric’s shoulder and tests the weight again. She pushes off him with a hiss but manages to keep her face neutral as she begins walking on her own.

Cassandra moves to catch up with her, but Varric holds a hand up and shoots her a look, plainly telling her to let it be. They begin walking behind her, and start their slow way back up the road.

He allows himself a moment of pity for all of them. A lick of fondness for Varric, a breath of of (very) reluctant respect for the Seeker, and Marana...well, none of them are what he'd expected. He lets himself fall deeper into the indulgence of these things, these real things one feels for beings of flesh and bone, wishing more than he cares to admit to linger where he's not dared to venture for the span of the year since he'd woken in this shattered place. 

But anything he could give them would be so quickly wrenched away, not just from them, but from him. What was the point of the inevitable gouges things like fondness and respect and...whatever else...would leave in them and in himself when the time came for him to be gone? 

A little ways on, Marana bends (he distinctly hears her little grunt of pain) to pull the arrow from the throat of the wolf she’d kept off of him.

She brushes her bare fingers along a patch of still-clean fur and whispers _little one, may your journey be swift and your destination full of slow hares and sunny groves._

Still in that dangerous place, he smiles to himself, though the grief for the creatures is still very near. It is a remarkably kind and simple thing to say, and not meant for show or grandstand or anything but the creature itself. 

What's more, she'd been speaking Elvhen. 

It hadn’t been broken, but hadn’t sat perfectly on her tongue, either. It's still a foreign language to her.

Yet...

The words had left her mouth with little effort, and she hadn’t been choosing memorized vocabulary words and stringing them together. 

Who is this woman, this child, who knows more of the language of the People, _H_ _is_ People than any he'd encountered in a mortal age? Treading deeper into the place he'd allowed himself to be carried off to in the frenzy of the past few minutes, he makes a note to ask her about it the next time they are alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Updated 10/18 after having finished playing Trespasser*
> 
> This chapter changed the most, I think, because my personal interpretation, especially after having played Trespasser has Solas starting to feel actual feelings for these people he's spending so much time with and seeing things in them that surprise him more and more often. There are glimmers of him actually getting attached from some pretty early banters (specifically with Varric) and I mean...the whole "I love you" thing on the balcony after only a single real-life kiss....
> 
> Poor Solas. Kind of.


	11. Pants-Free Adventuring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marana reads too much into things (and knows it, bless her) and there's actually *gasp* a bit of laughter

By the time they reached the campsite, Marana’s head was pounding and her thoughts seemed unable to keep up with themselves.

She’d initially felt guilty for shrugging off Varric’s help...the dwarf had been nothing but kind to her since this whole thing had started. He’d offered her a drink from his flask after their first bout with the mages near the Crossroads. She’d taken it gratefully in bloody fingers as they’d sat, silent in the grass, thinking that in another life, in another world, she and this small man with his roguish eyes and easy jokes might have been friends.

She’d asked him about Kirkwall, and the shadow that had crossed his stubbled face had nearly brought her to tears. She and her father had read The Tale of the Champion, and it had been easy, at the time, to imagine the sarcastic, knife-throwing Hawke as just a character. Words--pretty words, but words nonetheless--on a page meant to conjure a picture in her imagination. Seeing that look on Varric’s face had reminded her that Hawke was an actual man. With family and friends, fears, hopes for the future, perhaps with a lover he was now forced to be separated from.

He’d offered her his help. But she hadn’t been able to accept it. Not with Cassandra looking on.

She’d seen the look in Solas’ eyes as well, and was grateful to him for understanding her need to appear strong in front of the Seeker. Not to show her...to _spite_ her. She may have had no choice in all of this, but she could choose how they viewed her from now on. And it wasn’t going to be as a wounded little halla who needed a shem to carry her.

_So much anger, da’len._

Her father’s voice. _“Abelas, Babae_ ,” she whispers to the silence.

Honestly, though, now she wanted nothing more than to be back to where they were not twenty minutes before. Her and Solas, quiet, as peaceful as they were going to get among these people, lost in their easy work but wholly aware of each other.

 _You really are the most idiotic_ , she told herself, shaking her head.

As she felt the blood start to pool in the upper portion of her soft boot, she swore violently to herself that was never going to be caught without armor again.

“Who’s hungry?” Varric had walked over the still-burning embers to their fire, and was pushing the coals around with a long stick. Two rabbits, fat with the abundant springtime grass, lay a few feet away, ready to be skinned and cooked. Not having much of a taste for the salted meat and sickly sweet biscuits in the food packs, hunting the rabbits had been her little rebellion for the afternoon.

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how to clean them?”

“I’ve camped. A few times.”

She smiled weakly, thrust her hunting knife at him and said, “I’m too tired to stop you from trying. Just don’t hack them to pieces.”

He made a show of pushing up the sleeves of his shirt as he bent to pick up the tiny carcasses.

Creators, her head was swimming. She walked towards her tent as she heard Varric curse under his breath as he drew her knife out of its sheath.

The second the flaps of her tent fluttered down, she started to shake. She wasn’t sure if it was blood loss or having closed just closed a rift or some combination of the two, but her hands could barely stay still long enough to find the ties of her breeches to loose her leathers to get at the bite.

It hadn’t been a difficult fight, or even a very long one. The wound was deep and likely jagged, because she had felt the wolf’s teeth tear across her flesh as it had been jerked away by Solas’ staff blade, but she’d had (and fixed) worse.

It was the placement that was going to be a problem. Seated in the low tent, it would be impossible to do anything herself.

No. There had been nothing terrifying about the wolves. Their beautiful, jewel-bright eyes, taken, enslaved, becoming peepholes of corrupted mirth.

That things like this had so quickly become a norm to her was the truly terrifying thing. What unsettled her more, perhaps, was that there hadn’t even been any freely-walking demons near the rift. Which meant that they had taken possession of the wolves completely, rather than just controlling them.

She raised her hands to cover her eyes to close it all out for a moment, vaguely thinking that she must be smearing blood all over her face but not caring overmuch.

“Marana?” The little flip her stomach does at hearing his low voice is _ridiculous._

“Yes?”

He parted the tent flaps with a hand, kneeling to duck his head in. His eyes moved from her smeared face to her raised leg, to the mess she was spreading all over the brand new bedroll as she struggled to find a position to even see the bite.

“I can let you struggle a while longer if you like. Give you a chance to really make a mess of their fine woolens,” he said lightly, though his eyes were concerned.

“It might be worth-- _ah_...”

She’d experimentally pulled the sticky leather away from the back of her thigh, and though the blood hadn’t had time to fully crust over, the pull had smarted.

They looked at each other, the true awkwardness of the entire thing settling over them. “It’s going to swell soon unless it’s treated,” he said, pitching his weight forward onto his knees and moving a little further into the tent.

He held his little satchel under his elbow, and a waterskin in his hand. He handed it to her, and summoned a little ball of white light that hung in mid-air above them.

She sipped at the skin, then swigged. The water was still gloriously ice-cold, not, she guessed, because he’d just gathered it from a spring. “ _Ma serannas,_ ” she said, and then “I don’t suppose you can just lay a hand on this and it will magically knit itself.”

Her mother’s magic, though powerful, had never been strong enough to fully mend tissue or bone. She’d heard of mages who had the ability, but none were known to her Clan.

He hummed a little laugh, “I think not.”

 _“Fuck,_ ” she breathed and he chuckled again at the curse. She let out an exasperated sigh, and gingerly twisted and lowered herself onto her stomach. It’s not that she was overtly shy or even particularly modest. Clan life had left little room for such things.

He was different, though. It was one thing to bathe in a stream with friends, even brothers, or to strip out of armor and leathers in the back of an Aravel go to sleep. It was quite another to expose her ass and thighs to this man, probably fifteen summers older than her, with his quiet words and keen eyes, nothing like the shemlen but still utterly foreign set against any Clan she’d ever encountered.

_Oh for the Creators’ sake, you have a bunch of puncture wounds in the back of your leg and you’re bleeding to death._

Lifting her weight onto her chin to make a bit of room between her body and the bedding, she hooked her thumbs into the cinch of her breeches and made to inch them down, feeling the exquisite throbbing as she moved.

He stilled one of her arms with a hand and a--rather hasty-- _“mana."_

She grimaced and felt the air hit her feverish skin as he cut away a swatch of leather. No. _Burned_ it away, with a clean, tepid fire that she hadn’t even felt.

“How is it that you can manage a fire so delicate it doesn’t even touch me, but can’t heal a few teeth marks."

“This...is a bit more than a simple bite.”

“I know. I have your cursed... _ach_...blade to thank for that _ma amelan,_ ” she said, and she’d meant to dissipate some of the tension, but the sting of the soaked cloth he’d placed against her torn skin had brought en edge to to her voice.

“I...” he started, and he seemed a bit stricken, “I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I can accept your apology, but you owe me a new set of leathers.”

“You have an extra pair, I hope.”

“If I don’t?”

He paused, and she savored the warm little bubble of laughter blooming in her chest. “A finer recruitment initiative than ever any Inquisition had.”

Startled, she glanced over her shoulder to see his flushed face before she let the laughter stream out of her mouth, ignoring the little hiccups of pain in her leg. 

“I didn’t mean...”

“Ah no it’s foolproof! Yes, any Herald that allows pants-free adventuring is one to get behind.”

_Creators._

It was his turn to laugh, and it was a full and honest thing that filled the tent for a few moments before he cleared his throat and wrung another few drops of whatever saturated the cloth over her clean wound.

"Make sure Varric hears that one,” she said as she felt him prod her skin with a cool fingertip. 

“Oh, I’m already writing it down,” Varric called from outside, and they laughed together this time.

It was amazing that such a simple, _absurd_ thing could bring her up from the pool of murk she’d been stumbling around in these past days. She wondered how long it would last.

“Can you feel that?”

“Hm? What...”

“The cloth is soaked in a diluted solution of Prophet’s Laurel and Crystal Grace. A few other things. It’s meant to numb.”

“I guess it’s working. Where did you find--”

He chuckled again “No where near here. All right. I have to stitch the two tears where the thing pulled away. Don’t speak until this is done.”

Looking again over her shoulder, she saw him threading a silverite needle with a fine gut. Gritting her teeth, she pressed her eyes into the palms of her hands, ready for the pull of the needle. To her surprise, it didn’t come. The numbing solution must have been a recipe only known to him, for the handful of times she’d stitched and been stitched, she could feel echoes of the ghastly pulls and catches of needle and gut for days no matter what concoction she or anyone else used.

“Finished,” he said, and pressed a clean, dry pad of linen to her numbed skin, and hesitated.

“I...can’t wrap it unless I sever the pant leg completely. You _do_ have an extra set...”

She grinned. “You’ll have to wait and find out.”

His smile was still warm, but he had not laughed out loud this time and it was clear he wasn’t going to continue the joke.

She felt her face grow hot with embarrassment as he burned through the rest of the ruined leather.

She kept her eyes on her folded, bloodied fingers as he carefully lifted her bare leg an inch or two to get the bandage around her thigh. Her leg was not numbed the entire way around, and the feel of his fingers on her thigh as he lifted it...

Sweet Mythal, her face was burning.

“Can you hold the end down?”

Something in his hushed voice belied the coolness of a moment before.

“Yes,” and she was amazed the word hadn’t come out in a whisper. She raised her head up, and brought her hand back to press the bandage down so he could wrap it more easily. He started to wrap the bandage around, still holding her leg with one hand. The way his thumb moved along the muscle...

Once, twice, three times, he brought the cloth around, and three times the knuckles of his working hand brushed her fingers and...

_Ridiculous._

She brought her own hand back up as soon as she could tell that the wrap would hold on its own. He lowered her leg gently, but with the same haste, and she practically pulled a muscle in her side sitting up and pulling her legs back toward her.

Her eyes met his own as she laced her fingers around her knees and held them there.

Was she breathing as hard as she thought she was? She uttered a silent prayer of gratitude, as she seemed to do _so_ frequently with him, to her mother for her dusky complexion and to Sylaise for the thickly-laid whorls of her vallaslin design for hiding the exquisite flush that she felt just pouring over her face.

Despite this, or probably because of it, she wouldn’t let herself look away. She would not be a blushing maid before him or anyone else.

He dropped his eyes, and reached for the waterskin. “Try to sleep on your stomach tonight,” he said, all hints of that thing she’d heard in his voice brushed away.

So thoroughly she thought she must have imagined it.

"Solas _..."_

"Yes?"

_"Ma serannas."_

Gods, how many times was she going to thank him? He nodded once with such cool formality that she started to raise a hand to stop him. 

But he was already standing up and and moving out of her tent.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually like the no low-level healing spell aspect of DAI because I think it gives magic a bit more weight. Less of a 'fix-all,' more a thing with different levels of aptitude and weakness. Thank you so much for keeping on with my very long chapters (and longer notes). You're all beautiful <3  
> \---------------  
> Elven words:
> 
> Babae: Father
> 
> mana: Stop
> 
> ma amelan: my protector
> 
> For this chapter, I'm using [this ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3719848?view_full_work=true)  very inventive lexicon of Elven that I came across because I was feverishly searching for some clue towards an elven word for "father." 
> 
> Both 'father' and 'protector' are constructed, I believe, but the construction, even though it isn't strictly 'canon' makes a lot of sense.


	12. Truth But Little Wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherin Solas is a bit of an angsty weirdo...and an old friend knocks him into shape.

Crickets, brave to come out in this place, chirp their way through an unconcerned nightwatch as true darkness settles over the little camp.

The Seeker is their nightwatch. He can practically feel her eyes boring through his tent canvas, half again as many times as they did with the others.

But his fingers are flying. Flying with a hunk of pine charcoal so soft it’s practically turning to powder in his hand. The pad of a finger draws out a shadow, smooths a line of hatchmarks so broad there’s practically no point because they will run together into complete darkness anyway. Sloppy. Careless. Now the stiff tree gum cradled between his fingers and the bowl of his palm is pulling a highlight and he’s moving, moving outward on a sheet of paper that’s far too small and he’s going to run out of room but it’s just a sketch anyway and _anything_ to take his mind away from how violently his body had reacted to the feel of her bare thigh under his fingers...

Faster his hands work, and the charcoal is smeared on the backs of his hands now and he relishes the bitter scent of the charcoal dust falling onto his tunic and then it’s her scent and it’s leather and embrium and steel and blood...

Why? Why? _Why_ isn't he sleeping? Searching out the memories of that long-ago, climbing up into the stars with Wisdom as she speaks to him in her crystalline voice of those long-ago truths. Truths he needs. Memories he _craves._

But now... Does he crave _her?_ A shemlen child who bears his Anchor by simple chance?

Here in this musty, drafty tent, he lets his waking mind wander. 

In the Fade, it could be so much more vivid. He could whisk her away to a time and place as far away from here as it was possible to go, dream her on a bed of silks and velvet, open for him, ready to sate any and all of his desires. 

Now, pictures of her come to him, broken, imperfect but utterly real. Her tawny skin in the glow of his soft light, that warrior’s smell filling his nostrils as he lets her hair fall over his face as she presses him back into the fur and skin bedroll. Then the tang of sweat on his tongue as he licks up between her shoulder blades when he moves behind her. The trails of black charcoal dust his roving hands would leave behind on her cheeks, her ribcage, her stomach as she arches to meet them and when he apologizes for it she would take his blackened hand and run it between her breasts, blotting out the lines of Sylaise’s branding with the chaos of his own fingers.

He pauses here, letting out a slow breath, and a little stream of rational thought trickles through him. How long has it been since...?

Since what...?

Since he’s felt, truly _felt_ , the give of flesh under his fingers, tasted that salty-sweetness flowing over his tongue, so easily remembered and so readily present in his Fade wanderings when he desires them...but...well...

He thinks of the rising, breathless fever that overcomes a body during sex, of not only watching, but feeling the flush spreading over breasts, collarbones, cheeks, and seeing the same ruddy stains spread over his own stomach. That ever-so-slight loss of control, the idea that the movements and sounds that you make are not entirely your own, so consumed are you with the need to get closer, deeper, that need to feel and be felt...

Centuries. It has been centuries. Centuries since he’s really had these things. He's simply hungry for them, nothing more.

He thinks then of the women he’s met in the days since the start of this madness. The tavern keepers and whores. Of how easy it would have been to hand over a few silvers and just let himself get lost in hands, skin, lips and legs. Even sea-green irises in those striking eyes he’d admired in a bare-faced elf near Redcliffe not three days before the explosion at the Temple. A striking woman all-around, actually, with an earthy wit and a wry smile. He’d spent the better part of an evening sitting at her gleaming, polished bar drinking a sweet, light ale and listening to her talk about her regulars. He’d marveled at the attention she’d given him, a ragged apostate (he could tell she’d known, even though he hadn’t been carrying a staff) with a few dozen gold to his name and a bald head...and wondered vaguely if she planned to kill him or rob him blind if she could get him alone, but there’d been no malice in her.

He wondered (and had wondered more than once since) if she’d been as lonely as he felt...a woman alone always having to play the placid innkeeper. What harm could there have been in slaking a bit of the hunger for companionship?

But it would have been nothing but a game.

 _"And so too would this_ ," he breathes into the silence. A dalliance, a distraction.

He thinks then of the things he's seen in Marana over these past weeks. The way she drinks with Varric by his fire almost every night, listening, letting him get lost in his telling, unconsciously (or perhaps very consciously) granting him the room to cut a few of the blackened bindings that have twisted around his heart since the events in Kirkwall.

He constantly feels himself stifling laughter at how openly scornful she is of human customs, clothing, and all of their high-minded machinations. Of how wary she is of accepting or encouraging the "Herald of Andraste" rumors. He hears--practically tastes--the fervor in her voice when she asks him questions about the Fade, about art, about Elvhenan...the way her nimble fingers have mastered the subtleties of making the little cakes of water paint he’d been teaching her to make in their brief moments of respite. And the way she fights...

Dropping his drawing folio and charcoal on his lap, he covers his face with his hands, uncaring of the streaks of black they're bound to leave.

The distance he's already let himself travel into that place of inevitable pain...the curiosity...the smiles. They are dangerous enough. This hunger...

Is that what it is?

Hunger for a body. _H_ _er_ body. Yes.

But this hunger runs deeper than the tightness in his trousers, as the back recesses of his mind still play out those curiously vivid waking dreams of her under his hands, teeth and tongue. 

Surely, this cannot be a hunger for _her_. All of her. Her eyes, her laughter, her voice, her scorn after a heated debate...

“In love again, are we, _ma lethallin_?”

He jerks his head up, and he’s no longer surrounded by dusty canvas, but a great (and gloriously familiar) expanse of green field, surrounded by walls of forest knotted with vines and dusted with early moonlight, a flush of red pouring from the sliver of sun still visible over the far horizon. In the center, a single tall tree breaks the great vast, as though it was placed there after the surrounding forest was raised, and the one who raised it had been reluctant to discard this single extra because of its painful beauty.

Against the wide trunk, a woman sits, bare legs crossed and head resting against the bark. She appears to be absently studying the nuances of the twilight sky, but he knows she’s watching his every move, taking in his knitted brow and charcoal-streaked face. Knows it's her who had spoken.

He chuckles humorlessly. “Love, _lethallan_? Delving into fairy stories again, I see.”

His voice echoes through the clearing and he lets the cool air, so often remembered here, soothe him as it kisses his nose and cheeks. She stands, and begins walking toward him, her homespun dress rustling in the grass as she moves. Her clear blue eyes are narrowed, not judging, but seeing through him before she's within an arm's length of him. Though a woman, the top of her chestnut head comes only to the middle of his chest and her bare feet are only slightly longer than his hand.

She does not look Elvhen, with her rounded ears and heart-shaped face, and over the years, the centuries since he's known her he’s often wondered at this. He’s become more and more certain that her ambiguous appearance is meant as some unspoken reminder to him that Wisdom is not a virtue exclusively held by the People.

A reminder he’s flatly ignored in most cases.

She comes to a stop a hand’s breadth away from him, still staring up into his face, a single eyebrow arched.

“Hmm. At least you aren’t raging around, upending boulders and trees and wailing like a little lost pup trying to deny it this time...”

He rolls his eyes, enjoying the freedom to be childish here, and not having to compose every facial expression and calculate every word. “When can I count on you to forget that?”

She smiles. “In a few millennia, I expect. When another mountain of folly takes its place.”

She pauses and brings her hand up to his cheek, brushing at the black smudges. Her brow knots briefly in concern, but she doesn’t comment on it. She runs her hand down his arm and laces her fingers with his.

“The wandering healer. A quiet scholar who loves his books as much for the smell of the leather bindings as what is between the pages. Rich blue paint brings a shiver of delight and he secretly searches for fine coffee when he comes to a traveling merchant with his companions.”

He ‘hmms’ in response, curious to see what her reaction will be.

“There’s truth there.”

“But little wisdom,” he says, smiling at the half-jest they’ve shared for endless years. Hand in hand, they start off, barefoot through the grass.

\------

Hours later, he wakes, slowly, reluctant to leave the twilight and cool grass for the musty tent. His drawing has fallen off his lap in his sleep and a sleeve swiped over his face brings back a film of blackened sweat, and the forever childish hope that what had happened in the Fade has carried through to this side of the Veil is, as ever, dashed. The early morning sounds of the camp...steel on whetstone, flint on steel, the Seeker barking orders at the requisition officer. Marana’s voice, hushed because some people are still trying to sleep, discussing a report with Scout Harding.

At the sound of her voice, Wisdom’s words come back to him.

_“You can’t tread on both sides of the path this time, ma falon.”_

_“‘Can’t’ or 'shouldn’t?'”_

_“Are they not one-in-the-same? ”_

_"Not necessarily. "'Shouldn't' is advice from an old friend. 'Can't' implies you know something of the outcome of my straying.'_

_"All I know is what's happened before."_

Before. _Before._

Listening to Marana's voice outside his tent, he wants nothing more than to step out into the morning light, to make an easy joke to Varric about the hunk of fur he found in the rabbit thigh the night before. To go about the simple tasks, the blankets, food and bandages for wounded soldiers, the returning of little trinkets to the lost souls they found, broken by this necessary war. 

Of course he will do just these things, for they are necessary, and they will be the truth but only half of it. 

And Marana...he wants to go out and whisper to her that while all of these shemlen are moaning and groaning about their backs hurting from the roots and rocks on the ground, the two of them are sleeping more soundly than they ever do in their soft beds in Haven, to make a comment about sleeping under the stars like he knows she's used to on warm nights like these. To ask her how and where she's learned his language to speak it so well and so fluidly. To kindle that little thing that may have started between them. And Void take him, he keeps going back to that fleeting, burning touch in her tent and he wants more. More of the hesitance, more of the guessing and wondering and pounding heart. So alive and so real. 

_More, more, more, always more._

_So long_. 

No. She is something that deserves more than half-truths and games. 

He gathers his folio and charcoals into his pack, tidying, busying his hands as he polishes the veneer of  _Solas the ragged apostate_ back to the glistening sheen he's crafted over these past months. He fills the cracks and smooths them, and when he's done it's as though he was never cracked. Perhaps he'd not traveled as far down the road to pain and loss as he thought--as he had in the past--if he could so easily pull himself out again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore Gareth David-Lloyd's performance in "All New, Faded for Her" and how much anger at those dopey mages and how much fierce love for Wisdom he brings out during those scenes and in a way, I think it gives us all we need to know about Solas' relationship with her. But I wanted to give Wisdom a bit of time 'on-screen,' so to speak, because I like to imagine he finds a bit of peace with her. 
> 
> Also, if you read the [Spirit of Wisdom codex entry](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Spirit_of_Wisdom) it makes the mages corrupting her seem 10,000 times worse. 
> 
> Thanks for the love, as always <3


	13. A Trap

The iced water hit her face like a handful of dawn lotus-scented knives. She relished the shiver that rushed over her as droplets streamed down her neck and breastbone, cutting shining trails over her naked skin as they dissolved into nothing somewhere around the taut muscles of her abdomen.

Eyes still closed, she lowered her cupped hands back into the basin on the vanity, feeling how the glazed bottom had been stripped of its heat with the addition of the ice with the backs of her knuckles. It was a fine vessel, the kind that was thrown paper thin not for economy's sake, but to display the prestigious skill of the artisan. The precious white of the porcelain was glazed clear and frosted over with intricate lacework in rose and yellow gold, like fine jewelry hung over bare bone.

The thing was a treasure to be sure, but one she preferred more for its inadvertent commentary on the Empire than any kind of sentiment.

She released the barest slice of energy, and felt her fingers begin to numb as the water grew even colder.

Another jolt as she splashed the handful of freezing water over her face and reached to the side of the vanity where the plush cloth had been so carefully placed a few minutes ago. She toweled her face dry, breathing still sharp and skin stinging from the shock of the water, but left the rest of her torso to dry on its own.

"Lyra?" she called back to her handmaid, who had been silently readying the fine garment draped over the one of the forms that stood beside the bed.

"Yes, Lady?"

"Be sure those buttons on that left side are secure. Last I checked, a few of them had pulled loose."

Oh, how the matrons, either too old or too unattractive to understand, would clutch to their over-jeweled throats if they knew how those buttons had loosed from their threads. It might almost have been worth it to leave them so she could watch their hawkish eyes rake over her, remembering or wondering what it was like to have a pair of warm hands pulling away clothing with enough force and enough purpose to tear silk fibers.

"Yes, Lady," she answered, in the exact way an elven girl of barely sixteen summers should be addressing her mistress. Her long eyelashes fanned out against pale cheekbones, and she was careful to never let her gaze rise above floor-level. She kept her voice quiet, clear, revealing nothing of herself because she was nothing but animated set dressing.

Two other elven girls of similar age and purpose approached from the bureau on the opposite side of the room, and Vivienne watched them silently in the mirror's sharp reflection. One of them carried a corset, a thing of such finery it would have paid for a year of the girl's service and three sets of clothing each for her and her companion.

The girls' service for the evening had been a courtesy of the Marquise, who had traveled from Val Chevin with her husband, The Marquis Alphonse, who was to be a sacrificial rook at some point during the evening's revels.

She thought of the veritable harem of too-young serving girls he kept at his gaudy manor-house, his open and vicious abuse of his elven servants, and his not-so-secret views on how to work magic out of bloodlines and for a moment fancied herself a shining warrior, ready to strike down a particularly venomous dragon. Besides, the things he'd been quietly spewing about the Inquisition were beginning to tarnish its reputation in this tight circle, and Vivienne found herself clinging to the hope that the growing organization would find its way to stitching together something resembling Order. 

The other, and she was ashamed to admit, the _bigger_ part of her kept reliving the moment the Marquis' whisper had rung through the perfect acoustics of the Winter Palace a few months ago: 

_I do hope Duke Bastien puts out the lights before he touches her..._

Her jaw clenched as it did every time her mind drew too near to the memory of the loudly whispered words. No. She was no warrior. She was Lady Vivienne de Fer, The Imperial Enchanter, trusted confidant and advisor to Empress Celene and treasured mistress of Duke Bastien de Ghyslain and she would not be torn down in such a way.

If she was going to be petty...the offer of The Marquise's servants had been too good an opportunity to pass up. They were sent for secrets, of course, as were all servants in the Orlesian court whose services were offered up to guests for the evening, or brought as a courtesy to hosts of particularly extravagant affairs. 

The two elves wrapped the gilded cage around her torso, and begun lacing the near-endless eyelets with the thick cord. Vivienne set her feet firmly against the shining floor, knowing that the two girls (who would know little else but lacing, tying, brushing and buckling) would both comprehend and be awed by the raw strength it took to withstand the brutal tugs of the laces without clutching to a bedpost or doorframe.

If Marquis and Marquise were going to send two pairs of eyes and ears to spy on her, and then insult her with "our compliments" and "dear friend" she figured she might as well send them back with words like 'immovable' and 'like solid stone' on their loose little tongues.

It was a half-hearted play from the Marquis, to be certain. But then, she thought as she continued to watch Lyra in the reflection, where would she be without the underestimation of her peers?

  _...but then, she must disappear in the dark._

Her throat seemed to constrict around the memory of the words, and a prickle of heat flared up the chilled skin of her cheeks. She pictured her chocolate Rivaini skin set against the frock she'd so carefully chosen for the evening and smiled a brass-hard smile to herself. She would be radiant in the glow of the chandelier high in the rafters of her Hall, but her skin would look that much darker against the icy-white silk. If only he...

No, it was not the time for girlish daydreams. 

For the barest second, Lyra raised her pale eyes to Vivienne's in the reflection, squinting briefly before lowering them back down to her un-thimbled fingers, which were tying off the last of the loose buttons. 

As the elven girls quietly knotted the corset lacing and started unfolding velvet leggings, Lyra gave a faint hiss and a tiny little cry of pain.

Vivienne and the two maids whipped around as Lyra clutched a finger between her lips briefly and then brought it out, inspecting it. A sizable trail of blood blazed over the pale flesh of her finger and quickly fell in two fat droplets onto the frosty white brocade of the bodice.

"Oh you little fool," Vivienne hissed around a cry of pure exasperation, "This is the third time in a single fortnight."

"It's just a bit, Lady," Lyra whispered, eyes firmly fixed on her feet, letting her curtain of white-blonde hair creep down over her face.

Vivienne froze, and if she seemed made of stone before, she was now a bastion of iron in the dead of winter. In three swift movements, she was towering over Lyra's trembling form, not overtaking her, exactly, but occupying just enough of the girl's space to let her presence seep into every single sense. Vivienne grabbed the girl's bloodied hand and made a move as though to twist it, to hurt her, but seemed to think better of it.

Instead, she smiled.

She sighed and let go of her maid's slender wrist. "Oh, my dear," she said, the same expression on her face as a Mabari-trainer might have when coming upon half-grown bitch that had found her way into the sweet-pantry, yet again.

It was an expression of understanding. Pity. Because really...what did one expect of a creature to which nature had granted such limited faculties?

"I know it's difficult coming into such a position, but you must try to remember that you're no longer mending the twice-owned homespun of your _haren_ in Denerim."

"Yes, Lady," Lyra whispered, with, perhaps now with the tiniest bit of resentment into her voice. Vivienne gave her one last sympathetic look before turning to the other two servants, "Please excuse us for a moment."

The two girls all but ran from the chamber as Vivienne turned back to Lyra, whose pricked finger was now dripping onto the floor. She bore down on the elf again as the huge door clicked shut, and there was a breath or two of silence before Lyra raised her eyes back up to her Lady, but this time a single eyebrow kept moving upward as they looked at each other.

"My _haren_ in Denerim?"

"The Marquise is better at choosing her little mice than I gave her credit for," Vivienne whispered, almost to herself, her posture relaxing a bit as the corset allowed, "I apologize for the change my dear, but they would not have believed you had I carried through with our original plan."

Lyra narrowed her eyes, such a startling blue that showed no hint of subservience or fear now, as she gazed steadily up into Vivienne's face, trying to discern her meaning. The taller woman chuckled, but it was a much different thing than the saccharine, patronizing empathy she had worn a few seconds ago. "Beaten servants are terrified. Humiliated servants are _vengeful._ "

Realization dawned on Lyra's diamond-clear face "You treat me like a stupid little knife-ear, I go down to the kitchens in fit of wounded Elven pride and in an hour, the three of us are sisters in persecution..." Lyra trailed off and nodded in approval.

They had both been prepared for a melodrama, a grotesque display of abuse after Lyra had clumsily let herself soil the Enchanter's clothing. Human servants would have pitied her. They would have taken the trembling elf down into the kitchens and tended her wounds, seen the layers of half-healed bruises on her arms and cheeks and comforted her. They would ask her, gently, of course, if she wanted to get a bit of revenge on her mistress. She would start dropping little morsels (her mistress's late night visitor from a week ago, the seals on the letters that crossed the little silver delivery tray in the mornings and evenings), which, as a hapless elf fresh from an alienage, she would not have known the significance of. Eventually, they would persuade her to search her Lady's room for something in writing (anything would do), and she would be so frightened by her own defiance that she would grab any scrap of paper and thrust it at them with trembling hands. The piece of paper would just happen to contain a slew of thorns in the Inquisition's side, which the maids would scamper off to share with their master, lauding their own clever utilization of a half-starved, scared-to-death city elf.  

When the servants the from the Marquise had shown up and turned out to be elven, and Vivienne had noticed them watching much more carefully than she had originally planned for, the board had shifted slightly. Elven servants in Orlais tended to be sharpened to a razor's edge against such blatant mistreatment, either unsympathetic to the thing they'd faced themselves their entire lives, or suspicious of overly dramatic scenes, knowing that most of the nobility preferred the subtle condescension and quiet degradation, thinking it was a more thorough syphoning of their wills. 

They were wrong, of course. 

Lyra nodded again and then looked back down at the frock "I fear I've ruined--" she started, picking up the garment and studying the small bloodstain. She brought it to her mouth and sucked hard on the spot for a few seconds, and Vivienne could see her tongue working against the silk. Now Vivienne was the one to raise an eyebrow, but she had seen the age-old remedy for bloodstains used many a time by her mother in the handful of years before she had gone to the Circle. 

Lyra shrugged as she finished her treatment and brought the garment back to study it. She looked relieved. "Once that dries, it will be as if it never happened."

Vivienne nodded, more crisply this time. They didn't have much time to work with.

She reached into a tiny drawer in the top of her vanity table and pulled out a square envelope with a broken wax seal depicting a sword thrust through a sunburst with an eye at its center.

The parchment was Antivan, off-white and thick as she knew the Montyliet girl favored. Inside was a letter from the child Ambassador to one her contacts in Val Royeaux with a clever propaganda plan for the Inquisition. It was dripping with hints of the zealotry of Seeker Pentaghast, her week-long interrogation of a clever dwarven merchant-turned-charming-but-tawdry-writer, and her compulsive need to turn the disaster at the Conclave into a Holy crusade. The hints of an ex-templar Commander who had been at the scene of not one, but two Circle tower massacres, who was rumored to be slowly succumbing to the madness wrought of having his mind touched by demons and who was seeking redemption for a lifetime of ill-placed trust in his superiors were more overt still.

And no one this side of the Frostback Mountains was unaware of the ruthlessness of the Nightengale.

 _I do believe they will accept anyone, even this tattooed savage, if they think she is the chosen of Andraste,_ the letter concluded in a fine hand that was an uncanny representation of the Ambassador's own. 

Yes, the twisted portrait Vivienne had painted in the forged letter was a masterwork, perhaps a bit too vivid, too sodden with scandal, but perfect for the self-righteous buffoonery of Marquis Alphonse.

It was the best kind of lie, for it mostly contained truths everyone already assumed, with a few strings pulled and stretched to fill in the gaps. It played to every bit of prejudice the Marquis held dear, and perhaps more effectively disregarded Josephine Montyliet than any words could spell out; what kind of political advisor would put so much information in a single letter? Why, a spoiled little Antivan of course, looking for nothing other than a bit of adventure and rebellion before she was netted and bedded by some second son looking to elevate his position.

She pressed the envelope into Lyra's hands, and whispered "It's simpler this way...all you need to now is make sure this makes it to the Marquis. And it will as long as they get their sticky little fingers on it."

Lyra hesitated before speaking, cocking her head down at the letter. "I can still play the fool...pretend I grabbed something from your rooms at random, thinking it might hurt you, and it just _happens_ to be something you intercepted from the Inquisition...?" 

Vivienne looked at her without speaking, considering the unasked question. It did seem a little much to grasp, especially for two adept pawns like these girls, but she was willing to bet that they also knew the Marquis was just looking for the final cause to openly spit into this Holy wind blowing in from the East. If they were less adept than she'd originally guessed, they would be anxious to curry favor with their hard employer, and hand him the ammunition without considering the source too carefully. After all, the sullying of an entire organization was far more exciting and more useful than one woman's brief humiliation.

Although. If they were as sharp as she thought they might be, and part of her hoped they were, they would catch on to her play, and know that the little worm would be playing right into Vivienne's grasp if he denounced the Inquisition before itself, and they would get their own little piece of revenge by slipping him the 'accidentally' acquired information. 

Either way, the letter would be fresh in the Marquis' mind as the party started, and gossiping about it with the other guests would help it fester so that his eventual outburst would be full to bursting with poisonous revelation. 

The only thing left up to chance was the amount of venom he let slip before she had the opportunity to stop him. The letter walked such a fine edge between truth and fantasy. It would do no one any good if too many of the truths were actually revealed and laid bare before the ranking members of the Inquisition as they stood shoulder to shoulder in her house.  

Shrugging quickly into the now-clean frock and deftly beginning work on the buttons herself so Lyra could get a handle on her role for the evening, the thought occurred to her that it might be interesting to see how many of the secrets the growing Inner Circle had shared amongst themselves, and how much they were still hiding from one another. She shook it away. Secrets were important to most people, and now was not the time to engage in social experimentation. 

If the things she'd heard had been true, their figurehead was a young Dalish elf, who cared little for how the rest of the world saw the crusade; something that could be moulded and buffered away in the coming months. At worst, it would be a minor hinderance, and perhaps even blamed on the brash actions of the grieving Hands of the Divine, thinking they could make sense of the senseless death of Justinia by calling this child the Chosen of Andraste. She could be either a martyr for the Dalish or a champion, and either might be a useful asset...but Vivienne would have to wait until she met her to decide.

"All right," Lyra said, her pale face shining in the steady light from the many lamps scattered about Vivienne's room. "They should have everything they need in an hour, and the Marquis will have it in two." 

She folded he letter into her sleeve, as though she'd hidden it away, and moved towards the door. As her hand reached the handle, she turned, "Is it true the woman they're calling the Herald is Dalish?" 

"I do believe so," Vivienne said, and she was, as always, taken aback by Lyra's steady blue gaze she let herself use only when the two of them were alone. 

The handmaid nodded and held her eyes for a moment longer before slipping away. 

She fingered through her jewelry chest before selecting a wide belt of gold and pearl medallions, which she clasped around her cinched waist. Unlike so many of her peers, she was not naive enough to assume that just because she trusted her maid with such things that what they had had could safely be called friendship. No, she was certain Lyra had her own plans. The girl was more cunning than any countess or marquise Vivienne had ever met, and truly held much more power than most of them. She'd watched her play on the lecherous predilections of certain members of the nobility, widening her beautiful eyes, blushing, and letting their hands slip just a little too far down her back. They thought they were victimizing her, but really, it had been her spinning the secrets and building up a treasure trove of ugly truths to use when she needed them. She listened, watched, playing the dutiful serving girl, and the angry oppressed Elf as the occasion suited. 

Vivienne was certain she'd only glimpsed the surface of Lyra's collection, and had too much honest respect for the girl to ask for more than she needed at any given time. She'd hired the girl a  year ago after her last handmaid had been killed when a group of rogue mages had set fire to an inn in Val Foret, and she'd kept a hold onto her double reputation; to the nobility, she was a ruthless employer, using her carefully chosen staff (never more than three who all thought they were the most trusted) as no more than place holders for her maneuvers. This was the false one, for to the underworld of maids and valets and kitchen girls, she was the one who cared little for anything but the sharpest minds. Those without them could safely steer clear of her. Those with them flocked to her, knowing she was too smart to betray a good handmaid and willing to pay in ways more valuable than gold. She protected those in her charge as though they were her own children, and instead of being used, they were collaborators in her masterful plays of the Great Game, gaining healthy reputations--and considerable compensation--in their own right. 

Yes, others had secrets, things they kept hidden under their skin, their clothes, their masks. She took the things that should have been secrets and wore them like medals, daring challengers to try to sharpen them into weapons to use against her. 

Every once in awhile, they surprised her from behind, with a clever little barb that hooked its way into her. As she fastened the high collar to her neckline, fiddling with it until it framed her face perfectly, she had to admit the Marquis' words had clawed into her deeper, past her pride and her politics and were now lodged somewhere frightfully close to her heart. 

She fastened a bangle around her right wrist, letting it settle on the graceful contours of the bones, savoring the way its weight grounded her in the here and now. It was not silverite or gold or obsidian or veridium. It was solid iron, plain but polished to a dull lustre. Another secret she wore in plain sight. When Bastien had given it to her at a summer ball years ago, there had been snickers and whispers from the guests who had thought her merely a pet mage, a plaything of a powerful Duke who was humiliating her before a room full of people. But the rest knew the gesture for what it was; a surprisingly open show of affection from the outwardly stoic Bastien. Others would see the bracelet as a shackle, but really, it was her essence. 

She was the Lady of Iron. 

For the briefest span of time, she let herself be the women she had been on that warm night, and smiled at the memory of his face as she'd whispered to him of things that were now far away. Or perhaps...not as far as she cared to admit. 

She bowed her head again over the vanity for another moment before lifting her headdress to secure it in place.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [One of my favorite banters ever](https://youtu.be/ROLtGNRl9XE)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, Viv. How I love her.
> 
> \-----------------------
> 
> I'm on tumblr now! Hooray! Now I have a place for all the rambling things I used to put at the ends of chapters. As much as I like long headcanon-y explanations, I know a lot of folks don't, so now you can read them (or not) at your leisure [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fireandsilkenthread)
> 
> Just a quick note for those who don't feel like clicking over to tumblr...I finally finished Trespasser and made some relatively minor changes to a few chapters, mainly those involving Solas. I decided to tweak rather than tag AU because there really weren't that many changes and the now-canon outcome actually works better for what I had in mind anyway, so yay! (or not "yay" depending on how you look at it). 
> 
> <3<3 Hugs


	14. Brutes and Stone-Worshippers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull, Solas and Varric accompany Marana to Duke Bastien's estate to meet Lady Vivienne. Bull notices everything because he's a badass spy. Tension, insults and drinking ensue.

He was back in Orlais.

He had traveled 6 days and nearly a hundred leagues away from the whispers of the desire demon and the strutting, pointless nobles, himself and the Chargers hacking their way through so many Venatori factions he'd lost count.

And he was back in fucking Orlais.

The gaudy machinery of the Great Game clicked and whirred around The Iron Bull as he stood in the shadows of the vestibule of the Ghislain Estate. He was waiting for the dark-haired Dalish elf to break her way past the clouds of a thousand mingling, choking perfumes and stiff silk, waiting for the hammer stroke that he felt certain was going to fall.

He knew why they were here. They'd received an invitation from Lady Vivienne de Mer, First Enchanter of the Orlesian Circle to a 'soiree' at the estate of her patron, Duke Bastien de Ghislain. He'd thought they were going to discuss an alliance with the First Enchanter, and what she could offer to their organization; resources, information regarding the mark on Marana Lavellan's hand. So far, the Enchanter and her Duke were making themselves scarce. 

Bull could respect that. If Lady Vivienne was anything like her reputation, she was going to make some grand entrance once the party was in full swing. But still. 

There were too many whispers, too many disguised bodyguards--he'd counted six so far, and hadn't really even been looking very hard--milling among the guests at was was ostensibly just a social gathering.

Even the ones who _were_ bothering to act like they were escorting their charges instead of guarding them by walking next to them rather than a few paces behind were either too armored or too tense for all but the thickest of these deepstalkers in fancy clothes to mistake as anything but hired muscle. He wasn't bothering to hide--not that there was much point in trying. It made sense that the supposed Herald of Andraste would bring some protection to a place like this. 

 _Seven,_  he breathed, as he scanned the crowd again. Oh, for fuck's sake, that guy hadn't even bothered to button his vest to cover the hardened leather armor. 

Bull shook his head faintly, closing his good eye for a moment before opening it again and glancing around to the spot the mage had been standing a few moments ago. It was definitely telling of the current state of the world, when the giant, sword-wielding Qunari wearing an eyepatch was attracting fewer nervous looks than the slender elf in ragged clothing with a fancy stick slung over his back. Heads turned toward Solas as he paced slowly, closely watching Lavellan and Tethras mingle with the crowd. 

The Ariqun had been interested in the elf and how much pull an apostate mage had in the Inquisition's inner workings. So far as Bull could tell, he healed injuries, helped fill in the empty spaces on maps, and offered mostly sound advice, but only when asked for it.

Lavellan seemed to trust him and value his opinion. Although...well, maybe it was because Solas had saved her life (so he'd heard) but Bull had seen her eyes flick toward him perhaps a little too often when they were sitting around the fire, and had thought that he'd seen fear in the older elf's strange eyes the few times she’d been in danger.

Yes, he was sure he'd seen it when she fought off two rage demons the previous week in the Hinterlands, and again tenfold when they'd travelled back down the Storm Coast on the way to Orlais. They’d walked headlong into an enraged giant, half-dead and out of its tiny mind from a skirmish with a dragon. The thing had charged Varric, and Marana had put herself between them, fighting it off while the dwarf got his bearings and Bull ran back to help. She was a fucking great fighter, but it had been a desperately stupid and risky thing to do. 

And the look on Solas' face...it had not been the normal anxiety everyone gets watching people do dangerous things, but real, honest-to-goodness fear, like part of him would die if anything had happened to her. But it had been so fleeting and well-erased after the fact that Bull thought he must’ve been imagining it.

The Spymaster and Commander, both pretty sharp-eyed themselves, seemed also to trust him. So, he'd included all of this in his first report back to Par Vollen. A week or so had passed, and then the Ariqun had sent another message inquiring about the Commander. 

The Ariqun had heard rumors that the Inquisition's forces had been put under the command of an ex-templar, but hadn't imagined it would be  _that_  Cullen Rutherford, the Knight Captain who had so egregiously overlooked the Kirkwall Knight-Commander's descent into madness, and who had before that been surrounded by so many whispers after the collapse of the Kinloch Circle. Torture, blood magic...possession. 

So far, all he'd seen Rutherford do was work, train, eat and sleep. He'd seemed a little on edge during the few interactions Bull had had with him...like he was working hard to keep his focus, but the Ariqun's message had made it sound like he'd be a shuddering wreck half of the time. Or not in control of his own mind. But Bull had seen right away that no demon peered through the serious eyes, that the guy was professional to the point of mechanical, and any guilt to be found was more a Chantry boy thing than anything else. Boring. 

The only _really_  compelling thing he'd learned about Rutherford was that he was--or had been at some point--fucking one of his former charges from the Kirkwall Circle; none other than the younger sister of Thanael Hawke. Much less boring. 

Bull wasn't judging him. He'd done dumber things in his life...in fact, he may have actually started actually _liking_ the guy because of this little morsel of indiscretion. But the way the Commander's usual stony calm shifted when Leliana had mentioned the Hawke girl in passing made made Bull unwilling to pass the information on to the Ariqun. The guy might be straight-laced, but he was fair, smart and didn't seem particularly keen on any of the cruelty with which some of the chantry sisters or that fucking ass Roderick spoke about Marana, Solas, or even Bull himself. Whatever his personal issues, he didn't deserve any more whispers. And anyway, what was the point, other than useless scandal? 

And so here he was. Watching these plumed and fluffed partygoers falling over themselves trying to screw each other. In more ways than one. 

He focused his attention back on on Lavellan. He’d wondered how this woman, so young and so unaccustomed to human fuckery would do in this place. So, judging by their faces when they’d left, had the Ambassador and Spymaster. Josephine had tutted when they’d arrived in the chantry; two elves, a dwarf and a one-eyed qunari, golden in the the dawn light barely visible over the mountaintops, looking about as equipped for an Orlesian soiree as a bronto was for a Chantry sermon. 

He’d thought it was an interesting play. Cullen too had seemed to understand the impulse to lay their cards out on the table, not seeming to care overmuch about pandering to social norms.

"I think it makes sense to show what we are. An organization of all races." he'd said, tapping his fingers on large table in the meeting room. "It will alienate some..but it might attract the outliers, the players who keep to themselves unless they know they are joining something that will help their own cause."

Josephine had raised an eyebrow at this. She was clearly used to being the one offering this type of input. 

"Basically, the social outcasts have less to lose by joining a pack of freaks, and are usually the ones with the most to offer. And they'll also be more likely to join up when they see for themselves that we're not all a bunch of hand-wringing Chantry sisters in chastity belts," Bull had cut in from his spot near the door, feeling a grin spread over his face. 

Cullen's mouth had quirked up. "Not quite the words I'd use on the recruitment poster, but...yes." 

"Besides, they are going to have to get used the the notion that the Herald is..." Josephine hesitated, and had the good grace to flush slightly as she said "not what they might have expected." 

"So why not air out all the non-human dirty laundry in one go?" Varric asked, and Josephine's flush deepened. 

Varric's forehead creased as he realized what had meant to be a mood-lightener had had the opposite effect. He made a motion to touch the fabric of the Antivan's sleeve, clearly wanting to say something, but unwilling to risk making the moment any more uncomfortable. 

It was unfair, and typical human superiority, but Josephine's line of thinking was, of course, not untrue. 

Either way, the "she's Elven so deal with it" approach was working. Except for the brief glances toward himself and Solas, who had stopped pacing and was standing with hands clasped behind his back still surveying the hall, all eyes were on her. They strained to overhear her low voice, feathered with a lilting accent that none of them would properly be able to place, as she spoke to Lord and Lady something-or-other about the party, about Lady Vivienne, probing gently (but directly) about the things they’d heard about the Inquisition. 

The elven servants, invisible to noble eyes were looking on as well. Some with interest, others with resentment, others with... _hunger._

They were looking at her like she was the answer to their prayers. Which made sense. The Blessed Herald of Andraste, an _elf._ They would be the religious ones, who had adopted the Chantry as their own faith.

The resentful ones...he wondered...did they think she was on opportunist? Using a millenium of persecution to curry favor or sympathy from the people who had enslaved them in the first place? Or was it her tattoos? He knew that the City elves, especially in Orlais, saw the Dalish as having an easier time of it, and generally were in agreement with their human employers that the Dalish were little more than savages. Compared to servants, the Dalish were free. They were perpetually starving and legally hunted by templars as apostates in most places, but free to live, free to be themselves.

In essence, it was all just a giant fucking mess.

Bull knew what it was like to be stared at and whispered about in this place but he was also used to having at least the fallback option of going back to Par Vollen if things got really messed up. _He_ at least had a homeland. 

Looking around, he could also tell which of the nobles had appetites for the exotic. And he could tell that Marana knew as well. Their masks might be blocking most of their facial expressions, but their bodies revealed...well, the guy talking to Lavellan now, for instance, was shifting from one foot to the other, clearly trying to hide the bulge that had appeared in his overtight breeches. 

She _was_ pretty, Bull thought, as he had more than once since meeting her on the Storm Coast, but not in any way these people would have ever considered before seeing her. He frowned a bit and cocked his head, studying her, trying to think of a way he would describe her objectively in a report, and found it couldn’t be done. When he’d met her, dark hair had been plastered to her smooth cheeks with rain, her earnest caramel eyes, delicate nose and cheekbones laced with beautiful designs belying the ferocity with which he’d just seen her take down seven Venatori, two of them mages. Many of these clueless people would think of her as a Fae princess of some kind, taken to frolicking in the woods with halla and wearing flower crowns.

Funny thing was, he could kind of see her doing that in the right setting, but she was tough, her senses, mind and body sharp, hardened from years of living off the forests and fields, and those giant eyes of hers missed nothing. 

Tonight, her hair fell loosely around her face in a soft wave, the green loose-fitting tunic she wore over black leather breeches setting off the gold in her eyes.  The intricate patterns of her tattoos seemed fluid and otherworldly in the sparkling light of the chandeliers. The sword she wore at her side was in a decorative scabbard, but he’d seen her sharpen the edges to razors just hours ago.

He couldn’t tell if the easy, carefree look and posture she had going on tonight was intentional or not. He thought probably not. Again, it didn’t much matter. She’d accepted a glass from a passing servant and was listening in earnest to whatever crap the Lord with the bulge in his pants was spewing about Duke Bastien.

She really was good. Never for a second descending to simple flirtation or doing what these people might call "playing the harlot" She was being herself, and letting them know it. 

No, she didn’t know the game. She was just fucking smart. 

“Enjoying the view?” Varric had made his way over, out of the throng of silk and velvet, a silver goblet in his hand. 

“Mmm. She’s better at this than I thought she would be.” 

The dwarf nodded in agreement. “The ambassador got her ruffles...ruffled...for no reason. Drink, Chuckles?” 

Bull raised an eyebrow down at Varric before realizing he was speaking to Solas, who was still watching the crowd. 

“No, thank you, Varric,” he said, and there was a hearty, real regret in his voice. 

“Come on, you could use it,” Bull teased, enjoying the ease with which Solas and Varric spoke. He’d noticed it on their trip here, and it made him feel better about the elf in general. As much as he seemed to hold the respect of most of the Inquisition, something about him--apart from him being a mage--made Bull...not nervous,exactly, but always feeling like he was walking on very thin ice around him, and if he made a single wrong step, the icy plunge would be brutal and permanent. 

Solas looked at him through narrowed eyes, but didn’t respond right away. He seemed to be choosing his reply carefully. He’d only just opened his mouth, when a hush fell over the party. Someone had spoken out over the crowd, but Bull had missed most of it. All he’d got was “pig-shit” with a heavy Orlesian accent. 

The three of them moved forward, awkwardness forgotten for the time being, as they saw Marana’s eyes move up the staircase toward the speaker.

“...Crazed Seekers, washed up Chantry sisters and failed Templars...who could take them seriously?”

The man speaking was short, round in shoulder and belly, trying very hard to hide his weak stature with a rich, high-collared Chevalier's doublet. Of course he wore a mask, and it didn’t exactly cover his weak chin and jaw, but he was advancing on Marana like any powerful noble would approach an elf at an Orlesian party; like she was chum floating in deep water. 

She hadn’t flinched or backed away, but her arms had moved to her sides, and he doubted that anyone other than maybe himself and the maybe three decent bodyguards in the crowd noticed the shift her stance made from passive to ready for a fight. Beside him, Varric was slowly bending to place the silver goblet onto the floor, and the little ‘ping’ of silver on marble sounded through the silent hall like an iron bell. Equally slowly, he moved his hand back behind him, toward his crossbow. 

The man circled her, postulating at the breathless crowd, “Everyone knows this _Inquisition_ is just an opportunity for a bunch of political outcasts to grab power.” 

Marana looked as though she was fighting not to roll her eyes. “I’ve never made any claims to holiness. What’s your point?” 

The man continued to circle her, now looking her up and down, and making a show if it, as though he simply couldn’t comprehend how she--an _elf--_ could’ve made it through the main entrance. He cheated his torso outward, inviting the crowd to do the same. 

“So, you admit to being a pretentious usurper?” 

Bull raised an eyebrow at this. He looked beside him and noticed that Solas' mouth had quirked up, seeming similarly doubtful that this guy had a clue what he was even saying. 

The man had stopped moving, and was now resting a hand on a thin sabre strapped to his side. The metal glinted in the light as he tapped it. “We know what your Inquisition truly is,” and he gestured back to where Bull, Solas and Varric were standing, “Brutes and stone-worshippers and--” his eyes travelled up Solas’ slender form and back down, pausing to add emphasis on his last words, “birth defects.” 

Varric raised his eyebrows and looked quickly at the elf who, to Bull’s surprise, remained impassive, his face letting no reaction show. Marana’s eyes flashed behind the man, who Bull now was fairly certain was Alphonse, the Marquis who had gained a small but very solid reputation as the guy who thought selective sterilization of mages would be a good way to limit the passing of magic down the family lines. It was also a known fact that he was just a step above complete brutality with his servants when the mood struck him. 

When Alphonse turned back around to face Marana, their eyes connected and Solas gave a tiny shake of his head. 

_Not worth it._

He was right, Bull thought, this ass wasn’t worth pissing on, much less spilling anyone’s blood over. Though he thought he might’ve liked to see how far one of Solas’ crazy stone punches could spray teeth knocked out of a jaw. Just to liven things up a bit. 

He finally had stopped tapping the hilt of his dueling sabre and was grasping it, again advancing on Marana. “If you were a woman of honor, you would step out and answer the charges. But I don’t expect a little savage _whore_ to--” 

A loud, splintering _crack_ broke apart the thick, silent tension of the hall and cut off the rest of the Marquis’ sentence as he froze. Literally froze. Steam hissed off of his now blue-white skin and his eyes moved back and forth, the only part of him not coated in diamond-hard ice. 

Bull, Marana and Varric (and half of the breathless crowd) all looked at Solas, but his eyes were fixed on a point on the other side of the hall. They turned, and followed his gaze up the double staircase to...damn. 

If Bull had ever seen a more striking figure enter an Orlesian ball room, he couldn’t remember. There was a perfect blend of warm chandelier and chilly moon framing the doorway from which she stepped. Each _clip_ of the heels of her high boots was distinct, purposeful, like she wished every single person there to feel each step she took in their bones. The high collar, puffed sleeves and horned headdress accenting her blue-white half-gown and leggings _could_ have been gaudy and foolish, but the silhouette she cut against the gilding and frescos and perfectly blended light reminded Bull of a very sleek, very graceful dragon. 

This must be her. He’d heard of Enchanter Vivienne, of course, both from the information Leiliana and Josephine had given them prior to their journey here and from his time ferrying nobles around Orlais, but he’d never met her in person. If she was anything like her reputation, she was just as likely to eat them all and spit their bones back out for disrupting her party than she was to offer any kind of allegiance to the Inquisition. 

“My dear Marquis, how unkind of you to use such language in my house, to my guests. 

Her voice was quiet, deadly. _Clip. Clip. Clip_. Oh, those shoes were a great touch. 

“You know such rudeness is....intolerable.” 

The Marquis wrenched his mouth open. “My...Madame Vivienne. I humbly _beg_ your pardon.” 

She turned to him, eyes stony and merciless through her gold mask. 

“You should.”

Something about the way she said those last two words, as though she was using them to bite little pieces off of Alphonse was giving Bull the distinct feeling that this little show had little to do with Vivienne defending the Inquisition’s good name and everything to do with some deep, personal something between them. She walked another half-circle around him, “Whatever are we going to do with you _my dear?_ ”

She let the words ring through the otherwise silent hall, making it perfectly clear what “my dear” really meant and still staring at Alphonse through her mask. 

She let the question hover for another few moments before turning to Marana and saying “My Lady, you are the wounded party in this unfortunate affair. What would you have me do with this foolish, _foolish_ man.”

Damn, she was good. If there was something more between Vivienne and Alphonse, and Bull was pretty certain now that there was, she’d not so much humiliated him, but let him humiliate himself. She was publicly defending an organization that was the object of so much uncertainty among her guests, but she hadn’t done it before it had been openly criticized. She’d defended a Dalish girl who had charmed a few of them, which, to the more progressive among them, would be noticed. There would be much “Oh, did you see how Lady Vivienne rescued that poor little girl”-ing, he was certain. Still, she was ultimately leaving his fate up to Marana, which meant that Marana would suffer the opinions of this little pocket of the nobility, regardless of her decision, instead of Vivienne. 

It was brutal, but Bull didn’t find himself overly concerned. Not because he didn’t care, but because even in the short amount of time he’d spent with her, he’d learned that Marana could take care of herself. 

She looked from Vivienne to Alphonse and back to Vivienne, looking utterly perplexed. “The Marquis doesn’t interest me,” and Bull felt himself smiling at the tone of incredulity in her voice. _How could you think I give a flying fuck about what this guy says about my Inquisition?_

Vivienne paused and her own mouth quirked up, knowing that Marana had placed the power squarely back in her corner. 

“Do whatever you’d like with him,” Marana continued, and waved a hand before turning away, done with the issue. Though he noticed her hands ball into fists at her sides when she was no longer the center of attention. He wondered which part of Alphonse's little performance had made it through her defenses. He caught her eye and grimaced sympathetically. He’d been riled by much less in much more private settings. He didn’t blame her. 

Vivienne’s smile grew wider as she advanced on the Marquis and proceeded to rip him to shreds, slicing him from every direction. He didn’t so much feel sorry for the Marquis--from all Bull had heard, the guy had it coming a few dozen times over, but it was the way she did it; his clothes, his character, his family, his failures. She didn’t need to bring up the stuff about his radical views on magic or his abuse of elves...those were things they’d likely all already heard a thousand times before, and most of them would be able to see his side those particular issues. Wearing the wrong doublet for the occasion, on the other hand...well, that was just un-fucking-forgivable. 

He was so ready to be done with these people. 

When Vivienne was done, and the Marquis had slipped away, still dripping wet from the ice bath he’d just had, she turned back to Marana “I’m delighted you could attend this little gathering. I’ve so wanted to meet you.” 

She said this so fondly, with so much genuine warmth, and so little regard for the scene that had just taken place, that if he hadn’t been there, Bull would have thought her a different person than the wall of cold fury that had entered the room a few minutes earlier. 

“Gentlemen,” she said courteously to the three of them as she gestured Marana toward a corridor a little off the main hall that would give the two a bit more privacy to speak. Her eyes lingered on Solas for a few moments longer than they did on Bull or Varric, and for a second the cold was back again. It was mirrored in the elf’s face as he looked back at her, and as he watched her walk away with Marana. “Do help yourselves to whatever you’d like.” 

Slowly, the party ground back into motion, dresses swishing as their wearers turned back to their groups, boot heels clicking as they began to fill the space cleared by the tableau that would be on their wagging tongues for months to come. Tinkling music trickled through the conversations, and food was brought out. He noticed the servants offered it to them _after_ the titled nobles, at the same time they did to the bodyguards and ladies in waiting. 

He shook his head again and took a little fruit tart from a silver tray as Solas and Varric made their way back over to him. Solas was holding a goblet over-full with a deep, red wine. 

The three stood without speaking for a moment before Solas spoke. “You were correct, Iron Bull,” he said as he brought the goblet up to his lips, eyes on where Marana stood at the window, speaking quietly with--if Bull hadn’t misread the situation--the Inquisition's newest member. “I do need a drink.” 

From Varric, this comment would have been a sign of, if not friendship, camaraderie, allegiance against the tension and the absurdity of where they were, and whose company they were in. Solas was clearly going for the same meaning, except he made it obvious that he was including Bull’s presence in what was driving him to drink. 

He felt his eyebrows go up. The mage had taken a few passing digs at the Qun on their journey, but had been amiable enough. Bull had mostly taken it as friendly discussion on something that was, at the best of times, polarizing to begin with. But there was no mistaking the tension in the elf’s shoulders now, or the steel in his eyes, even though he wasn’t looking at Bull directly. 

He strode away before Bull could respond, and as he opened his mouth, Varric cleared his throat next to him. 

“Don’t bother. He’s called me _child of the stone_  three times already.”

“Yeah but I didn’t even...oh, forget it.”

“That’s it,” Varric said, grabbing two more goblets from a passing tray. “If I’ve learned one thing over the past ten years, dealing with...” he paused, searching for the right words.

“Assholes?” Bull offered, taking one of the goblets. 

Varric chuckled and continued as though Bull hadn’t interrupted, “...strong personalities...it’s to just leave them to storm around and feel misunderstood and self-righteous. They’ll work through it eventually. They get to go on a little personal journey, and you get to sleep at night. And I get to write a damn good chapter about it.”

He doubted that would happen in this case, but held his glass out anyway, and Varric clinked it with his own before throwing back the contents in a single swig.

Bull joined him, deciding not to worry about it. 

“Hm. If the wine is this good everywhere we go, I’ll follow the Boss to the bottom of the Waking Sea.” 

“I’m starting to like you more and more, Tiny.” 

Bull grinned down at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite parties to bring around. I always feel like Solas/Bull banter starts with Bull saying "Oh hey, remember that spirited debate we were having about the Qun? I thought of a response..." and ends up with Solas being like "No I actually, for real, hate everything about your people." 
> 
> I know this changes the in-game dialogue a little bit, but I always kind of thought Alphonse's insults were a bit generic for Vivienne to accuse him of using "such language" so I spiced them up a tad. And I found myself wishing that this game had more race/class specific dialogue outside of banter and background conversations. Like partygoers at Halamshiral are pretty vicious if you go in as Lavellan, but during cutscenes, not many people really address it with as much vitriol as I feel like they would in a world full of such deep-seated prejudice. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me while I took so long to update! Happy new year, friends. Here's to much more frequent chapters in the coming year! <3


	15. A Dramatic Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marana is homesick. Solas makes it worse. As usual.

Marana watched snow fall, wishing she could move farther into the cold hush of the night than the tiny stone balcony allowed. The freezing marble railing of the balcony ate through her fingertips where she rested them, as she looked out over the evergreens, uncertain whether or not she should feel triumphant that they’d gained another member—Lady Vivienne was sure to be an asset with her connections and her knowledge—or if she needed to bathe as soon as the tinkly music let up and the party guests dispersed. All that talk about “loyal mages” and returning order through the Circles…it made her skin crawl. 

She blew out a breath, wishing the little cloud that puffed out before her could have stayed around—surely, it would have been better company than anyone inside the Chateau. Except maybe Solas, Varric or the Iron Bull. She’d begun to like the latter already—if nothing else for the wonderful curses he employed at every opportunity, though perhaps that was just a sign of her mood.

Weeks ago, before the Mark, before the Fade, before Cassandra and Cullen and their politics, she would have thought first of the open merriment and kindness she’d found in Bull's good eye, and the frankness with which he both asked questions and offered his opinions.  _Signs of true humility: a sense of humor, being able to ask questions, and not being shy about being dead wrong,_  her father’s voice murmured in her head. She might have smiled, but…she found she couldn’t summon the energy. 

Absently, her eyes wandered down and began studying—as they so often did when she was thinking—the whorls of the  _vallaslin_ that poured out from underneath the three-quarter silk sleeves of her tunic; little rivers of golden brown sweeping their way down over her forearms to curl around her palms and fingers. 

Sylaise's winding knotwork was the only beautiful thing about her hands; nicked and calloused, covered in oil from sharpening blades; warrior’s hands, her brother had once called them.  

They matched the hands belonging to any of her clan; the hands of nomads, burned from cooking fires and shot with splinters of firewood.

Artists’ hands, her father had called them, forever marveling at the designs she and her mother were so often asked to stitch onto the garments of everyone they knew...from the wee ones wanting insects and flowers stitched into their trouser legs to the Keeper herself, who had requested a miniature tapestry of Shartan leading his rebellion on the on the back panel of her best robes. 

Hands that had clutched at the sinewy shoulders of a young Clan scout named Nenerel under a starlit sky as he pushed into her body, and run through his long black hair as he whispered to her with all the sweetness and heat of a first time lover. Hands that had roved over Mythal's branches on his chest and traveled all of their secret paths over his body on many a stolen hour in the days and nights before...

She shook her head. Best not think too much about those things, for it would only bring tears. Tears she’d become so adept at hiding in the too-soft pillows of the bed back in Haven, or in the dark of the icy night as she wandered the woods surrounding the village. 

Then there was the Mark on her right palm, so carefully and reverently handled and studied by Solas as he tried to determine its true nature. He was the only one who didn’t seem to be afraid of it. 

Shivering against the cold--it  _was_  so cold here, even for her body which was so accustomed to the elements--she brought her palms together, rubbing them and clenching them into fists to try unfreeze the blood. She let her fingernails catch in the calluses of her palms, thinking idly that the only hands which matched hers here were the ones belonging to the elven servants. Rough, red, cracked, hidden with gloves or clasped behind their thin backs in gestures of humility and subservience.

The elves. 

She’d wondered before traveling to Orlais if she would feel different among other elves, more at home, perhaps.  It had been a silly notion, of course; these elves were as foreign to her as any of the  _shemlen_. 

“ _The humans_ , _”_ said her father’s voice in her head. He’d always disapproved of his children using slurs of that kind.

 _“I wish you could see what they really are, Babae_ ,” she said, thinking, as she had so often of the Andrastian clerics (the peers of whom her father had always held in such high esteem) who had spit their venom at her as Cassandra brought her from her prison in Haven after she'd fallen from the Fade. 

As for the elven servants...she hadn’t known quite what to make of their stares, as she’d mingled with the partygoers, and then caused such a ridiculous scene, but she’d felt the hairs on the back of her neck on end all night as they followed her through the hall, silently waiting for something to happen. Trying to see if the Dalish were the savages their adopted religion preached of? Waiting for her to use the mark on her hand to smite the Marquis who had so brutally insulted her? Waiting for her to command them to bow before her, to worship her as Andraste’s chosen? 

She sighed out loud, bringing her hands over her eyes and rubbing. 

Whatever they were expecting, she’d been a disappointment, she was certain, for as much as she playacted at confidence, she knew full well, as they did, that she was just another elven pawn in their game. 

Oh, the humans could call her  _The Chosen_  and speak respectfully to her, as Cassandra and Cullen did, but the more she thought of Josephine and Lelianna, always with their heads together, trying to figure the far-reaching consequences of every breath she took, the more she realized that they had no intention of letting her ever be anything other than a ploy to attract more resources to their Inquisition. That she was a symbol, to be brought to important meetings and shown off as a mark of their diversity and tolerance. That if she tried to leave...

"Hoping to find a secret rope ladder?” 

She started at the sound of another voice so close to her, not realizing how deeply she had crawled into her own head. 

Turning, she saw Solas, his slender form silhouetted against the swirling backdrop of gold and velvet and laquered masks. 

She stifled a little laugh at the figure he struck, like a mysterious stranger creeping up on an unsuspecting party guest in one of Varric’s stories, though she’d begun to suspect Solas had just as much love for a dramatic scene as Varric. 

“You forget that climbing was how my family and I fed ourselves nearly every day.” She made a show of studying and measuring the distance from the balcony to the ground. “And you do me very little credit if you don’t think I can find footholds in all of this silly carved stone.”

She saw the lines around his eyes become more pronounced as he smiled. 

“Forgive me,” he said through a chuckle, stepping out into the cool light of the moon. 

When he came to rest at the edge of the terrace, he rested his hands on the marble of the bannister, where her own had been a moment ago. 

They stood for awhile in silence, and she, for one, was simply grateful to be in the company of someone who didn’t think her either a prophet or a slave, or a war asset. Although she wasn’t entirely certain what he  _did_  think of her. 

She’d been certain he found at least a little bit of comfort in her company, as she did in his. After all, he was just as much a captive of the Inquisition as she was, and Varric as well. She had no doubt that if he tried to leave, Cassandra would send her dogs after him. 

She was equally certain she’d made a fool of herself presuming to  _flirt_  with such a man. She felt the tips of her ears burn as she remembered the swift heat his touch had so quickly and unexpectedly brought a few weeks back in her tent in the Hinterlands, and the tawdry jokes she’d made about going around with no pants on. Since then, he'd continued to be amiable enough, not shy about offering his thoughts when asked, and still (apparently) willing to share the occasional eyeroll or commiserating look at the span and breadth of human ignorance. They'd continued to discuss history and magic and art while they travelled, but he'd always seemed preoccupied when she stopped by his neat little house in Haven, if he answered his door at all. 

She shook herself out of this ridiculous trail of thoughts with a prolonged blink. 

It was not like her, or any Dalish she’d ever encountered to be so concerned about forwardness, perceived or otherwise. Children were expected to be respectful toward their parents, and clan members were likewise expected to respect the Keeper and her First, but there was little room for the women to be shy flowers around men, or for men to expect women to stay in any place other than right beside them, hunting, hauling, making fires, cooking, playing music when time allowed and rearing children. Their life was so often too brutal and too unpredictable for any of the practiced primness of the “courting _”_ ritual that humans practiced. 

 _Courting?_  

By the Dread Wolf and all his red eyes, she barely knew this man, and this,  _this,_  was certainly no place for any kind of romantic fancies.

“May I ask you something?” 

She hadn’t realized how long the silence had stretched until she spoke out loud. 

He turned his head to face her, his eyes glinting from both sides in the blended light of the moon and the party. 

“What did the Marquis mean when he said “birth defect?”  

He hummed a little laugh that had nothing at all to do with humor. 

“Surely you can use your imagination,” he said, his eyes on the distant peaks of the Frostbacks, only visible because the moon was so bright. 

When she didn’t respond, he continued “It seems to have become a popular notion among several pockets of devout Andrastians that magical talents can be bred out of family bloodlines.” 

The tone with which he spoke these words was void of inflection, though she noticed that his hands had wound themselves into fists and the knuckles had turned white. 

“The only way to do that is to--”

She trailed off. Suddenly horrified at the images floating through her mind. Sharp little blades and leather restraints and terrified faces of children who had already been taken away from their families and placed into stone towers at the mercy of an organization that both feared and hated them. Then it was her brother’s face...

“I don’t know that it’s as grim as all that, Marana,” he said, smoothing the edges of his voice as all of what had rushed through her mind in such vivid colors had clearly played over her face. “Though I’m sure the less restrained among them might like to see it come to that. I believe that it’s mostly talk of lyrium-based draughts taken upon a child’s arrival at a Circle that would affect fertility as they matured.”

She stared at him, and felt the corners of her eyes sting and blur. “How can you take that away from someone?” The words were spoken more to herself than to Solas, but he continued to look at her, waiting for her to finish. “How can you make that choice for one so young? How can anyone claim that power over another person?”

He hummed in agreement, loosing his fingers from their ball and tapping them on the marble as he turned back toward the frozen peaks of the mountains. It was another moment before he said, “Is it any different than your Dalish practice of trading a child of magical birth to another clan if there is a surplus?”

Marana felt her shoulders tighten. 

His voice was even while he asked the question, as though he were posing a discussion query, a  _haren_  trying to get a student to consider all points of view, but she saw the line of his jaw, already as sharp as the blade strapped to her side, tense into a line which she suspected could have cut her hand if she touched it. 

He wasn’t wrong, of course. She knew it was not uncommon for Keepers to try to spread magic as thinly as possible so as not to attract the attention of the Templars. 

“There’s a difference between trying to cure magic like it’s a disease because you’re afraid of it and trying to make sure your whole clan doesn’t get put in chains for harboring apostates,” she said, carefully fighting to keep her voice as even as his.

In truth, the idea of her family, of  _any_  family being separated, against their will or not, brought the prickle back to her eyes, but she felt a duty to her people to differentiate between protection and forced sterilization. 

“True, but that assumes all Keepers have the well-being of the magical child in mind. And what of the ones they can’t find a place for?” 

She hesitated before responding. “I don’t claim that they all do. I can only speak from personal experience. They aren’t all like that, Solas.” 

He turned toward her again, and there was a pitying smile on his face. “Come, Marana, even you must realize that mages are more often than not mere commodities to Keepers. Dangerous ones.” 

“ _Even_ I?” 

Her entire torso was tight as a drum, and she felt her own hands curl into fists at her sides. She was beginning to feel little threads of betrayal weave their way into the simple irritation. So far she’d been able to at least breathe around him, to let a little bit of herself, her true self peer through the mask she’d tried to maintain over the past few weeks. And now he was sharpening his teeth on her, clearly looking for a debate, but coming perilously close to hitting a vein. 

_He doesn’t know your people. He doesn’t know your Keeper._

There was no apology in his expression as he said “You speak very fondly of your family, and your Keeper. It’s clear you see them above such an act, but what if you had been born with magic in addition to your broth--”

 _“My Keeper_ ,” she cut in, and she hoped the tremor in her voice conveyed the proper fury starting to pour through her “trained both of my brothers, and two others in the Clan  _herself_.”

Solas opened his mouth again, but she cut him off.

“My father and mother came from outside, a different clan, a different keeper, and even after seven years with Clan Lavellan spent weeks in agony after my brother started covering half our Araval in ice when he would cry. They thought Keeper Deshanna was going to be like the rest, and take poor Rel in the dead of night and leave him for the wolves or trade him to a passing clan like a halla. I was there when when she caught Rel freezing a little stream so he didn’t have to ford it to get to a patch of berries he wanted. I saw her take my father’s face in her hands as he started to plead with her, and swear on Mythal’s name that she would take a Templar’s blade straight through her heart before she left a child behind.”

She’d been close to shouting at that point, and the silence that followed was thick, clotted with raw nerves and clinging, desperate grief for the loyalty, the safety, even among the snapping beasts that had begun circling close, so close in the days before she went to the conclave and everything changed. For the bright, kind eyes of her Keeper, for the little white fires Rel conjured on cold mornings hunting in the fields, for her father's impromptu lessons around a cooking fire as her mother rolled her eyes and gently reminded him that botany and trap-making were, perhaps, slightly more useful than lost dialects and ancient legends.

 It was not like her to to speak this way, but it had been his fault. He’d brought her family into the matter. 

“Marana--”

But she didn’t let him finish. “My  _fondness_  for my parents and my Keeper is not a child’s daydream. If I thought Cassandra and Leliana wouldn’t have thugs scouring through every Dalish clan from here to Tevinter don’t think for one second that I wouldn’t be back there with them.” 

She tilted her face away from him. Hot tears were brimming her eyes now, as they so often did when anger took hold of her, much to her constant irritation. The Anchor flared in her hand as she dug her fingernails nails into her palm hard enough to hurt. She wanted to storm off, but had nowhere to go. She would be damned if she was going to go back into that snakepit of a party, hurt and anger pouring off her in waves. 

She felt him shift his weight around next to her. Good. She hoped something she’d said had pricked its way through his infuriating, smug--

“ _Gara lethallin.”_ Come, my friend. 

His voice was softer now, though when she turned toward him again she couldn’t read his face. He held out a hand, and his head was tilted out toward the mountains. 

“ _Banal. Vara u’em.”_ No, leave me alone. 

She felt like she was indulging him by speaking Elven. She’d been surprised when she discovered how much he seemed to know, and how smoothly it rolled from his tongue. Even she had to take that split second to translate in her head before replying, and her father had spent most of his life devoted to piecing together fragments of the lost and ancient tongue of Elvhenan, and had made many discoveries that Clan Lavellan had taken a fierce pride in cultivating and protecting, the  _h_ _aren_  teaching the children not only verses but the grammar and mechanics as best they could. She hadn’t assumed, of course, that they were the only ones, but their knowledge and use of the language far exceeded any other clan she’d ever encountered. 

With Solas, speaking their language had been a source of comfort, a mutual understanding, something that just the two of them shared amidst a sea of suspicious stares and stifled whispers. 

She wasn’t particularly keen on sharing anything with him at the moment.

“You can’t just insult everything closest to my heart and expect me to...” She took a steadying breath and finally quieted her seething temper. 

So far, he'd not been as outwardly scornful; nothing like the venom that dripped from his words when he spoke with The Iron Bull about his Qun, and all its strange rules and restrictions and hatred of magic. When she was back in Haven, she’d have to take a good long look at why he held himself so clearly apart from the Dalish, why he had so much distain, even, for a people he’d claimed to never have belonged to in the first place. 

But now...she was just too tired. 

The picking and the choosing every word around these “fucking strutting peacocks”--as The Iron Bull so aptly called them--and the subsequent slurry of fear, irritation and anger during her conversation with Alphonse had just about taken every sliver of fight out of her body. 

Glancing back toward the warm light and the choking haughtiness, she muttered  _“Ah Fen’harel ver na,”_ as her eyes reconnected with his. Dread Wolf take him, indeed. The expression on his face came closer to a smirk than she’d yet seen, and she fought back an eyeroll as she reached out for his hand. 

She only had only a moment to register the cool of his skin, the graceful curves of his knuckles under her own fingers, the remarkable strength of his grip, before she felt her world shift and splinter. No, not splinter, just suddenly go from stationary to movement so fast that it seemed like she was stationary while the Chateau, the garden, the opposite balcony, the stars in the diamond-clear sky were the things moving around her. 

Solas tightened his hold on her hand as she gasped, the breath sucked out of her, perhaps in surprise, perhaps because of the fact that no living thing could possibly breathe in this state of motion. 

Just as soon as it had started, the landscape righted itself and she was stationary again. Marana blinked and looked at him, still grasping his hand for balance. When they'd fought together, she'd seen him move so swiftly he seemed to disappear, disorienting their opposition and catching them off guard, only  _he_  made the reappearing part look rather effortless. Practice and repetition, she thought, though the thought of swinging a sword or parrying or moving at all after the rushing, the swirling and churning in her stomach made her head ache. 

He was studying her, the look in his eyes unreadable and his face now fully engulfed in the blue light of the moon reflecting off a snow-covered world. 

“What...”

He brought a finger to his lips as he let go of her hand. 

Raising an eyebrow at him, she stopped, fully intending to continue her question when her senses began to take in where she was.

Instead of dusty velvet and too-shiny marble, she was surrounded by ancient evergreens, their needles and the thick blanket of snow pillowing her ears against all other sound. The silence was overwhelming, but perhaps that was only because she’d grown used to having a constant serenade of chantry bells and the shouts of Cullen’s recruits from dawn till dusk. In the ten seconds or so since the world had calmed itself, she'd heard only a faint rustle somewhere to her right, an owl shifting in its perch, perhaps, and as her ears adjusted, the very distant yelps of wolf pups wanting their ferocity to be heard by the entire nighttime world. 

She found the corners of her mouth reluctantly curving upwards, and--though she could have been imagining it--she saw his shoulders relax as he watched her face. 

She still felt carved out, drained, and raw irritation still flecked up around her, but she realized it was less from his lack of understanding--or perhaps his lack of  _willingness_ to understand--of her life and her family and more from her own loss of those things since the Conclave. And then, as she looked back at him, a new, brighter thread wound through her thoughts that surprised her;  _pity._

Perhaps his dismissal of her loyalty to her family, her staggering loneliness and and homesickness for her life with Clan Lavellan as simple 'fondness' was less due to obstinance and more to a lack of every having had those things in the first place. Had  _he_  been left behind? 

She huffed a little sound into the silence as she voiced a thought she'd had back on the balcony. "You do fancy a dramatic scene, don't you?"

His own laughter seemed to surprise him, and it was warmer than any she'd heard from him in a fortnight. 

He didn't take her hand again, but his smile stayed on his face as he turned, and she followed him into the night.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, Ao3! It's been awhile. Life has finally calmed down enough for me to start posting again, and I'm so happy to be back <3
> 
> I feel like we were a bit overdue for a tiff with Solas, but I split this chapter into two because it was getting too long, so I'm not leaving you hanging here. The second part will be posted shortly! 
> 
> **Just a note, I'm trying something new where I don't post my long-winded notes and explanations right below the chapter because I feel like it slows everything down for folks who maybe don't live to speculate and geek out over minutae, but instead post my thoughts on the chapter in the comments. So if you want to read my thoughts and reasonings for decisions I've made in the story or the dialogue or whatever, you can read it if you'd like to, but now it's easier to skip over if you don't. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and if you have been waiting since JANUARY for an update, you are awesome and thank you for sticking with me :)


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